Mayella's Motive

From the book "To Kill a Mockingbird:"

I have nothing but pity in my heart for the Chief Witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But, my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She's committed no crime. She has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But, what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robison was to her a daily reminder of what she did. Now what did she do? She tempted a negro. She was white and she tempted a negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.

The passage above is Atticus's closing statement as he is defending Tom Robinson in court. Mayella Ewell has accused Robinson of assualting her. However, Atticus discoveres Mayella's real motive behind bringing Tom Robinson to court. In their society, there is an unwritten law that admonishes those who pursue interracial relations (particularly between whites and blacks). She is bringing Robinson to court to mask her guilt for going against the tacit "law of the land." If she can prove that Robinson pursued her, she won't feel any shame and won't be soically ostracized.

I love the way this argument is written not just because it reveals Mayella's motive and strongly defends Robinson, but because it shows a side of Atticus's character that we don't really expect from a closing statement. With his final words, Atticus not only asks the court to find Robinson innocent, but also to pity Mayella for being a product of ignorance and bigotry. In today's legal system, you hardly ever see a defendant's lawyer show sympathy for the prosecutor. When he outwardly says "she has committed no crime," he is alluding to the fact that society as a whole is guilty of creating an image (Mayella's view of reality) that pursuing a man of color is reprehensible.

However, being Tom's lawyer, he also doesn't let Mayella completely off the hook. While he feels bad for Mayella, he hates how she has to risk another man's life just so she can feel better about what she did. However, you can argue that ignorance caused her to do that as well. It's like today's equivalent of the insanity plea, only in Mayella's case, she can use the "I didn't know any better because I was raised by ignorant parents" plea.