In ,
Mayella Ewell is called to the witness stand and testifies that on the evening of November 21st,
she called Tom Robinson into her yard to bust up an old chiffarobe. According to Mayella, Tom
followed her into the house, ran up behind her, and began to choke her around the neck. Tom then
proceeded to throw Mayella to the floor and rape her. Despite Mayella's cries, no one came to
her rescue and when she woke up, her father was in the room asking questions. Mayella then says
she fainted again and woke up to Mr. Tate.
Despite Mayella's confident
attitude,exposes her lies during his cross-examination. Mayella proceeds to contradict herself
by saying, "No, I dont recollect if he hit me. I mean yes I do, he hit me" (Lee, 188).
Atticus then makes Tom Robinson stand up and simply asks Mayella how a handicapped man with one
good arm could have possibly choked, beat, and raped her.
When Tom was a boy,
he caught his left arm in a cotton gin, which is why it is twelve inches shorter than his right
arm and completely useless. Due to Tom's severe handicap, he could not have been responsible for
the handprints encircling Mayella's entire neck and it would have been impossible for him to
choke her. It is also be highly improbable that Tom could have held Mayella down with his left
arm while he beat her with his right. Judging by the location of the bruises on Mayella's face,
a left-handed person would more than likely cause those specific injuries to the right side of
her face. Atticus then makes a moving, logical argument that Bob Ewell was his daughter's
perpetrator.
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