A little girl points out a man sitting at a bus stop. “Why is he so dirty?” She is quickly shushed and reprimanded. The man says nothing as her mother apologizes. I watch this scene from the bus, and I’m surprised that the man does not seem irritated in the least. I would have been angry. He may dirty because of his work. He may be dirty because there’s no shower in his car. He may be dirty because a damp cloth only wipes away so much grime. He may be dirty because he has no choice.
A certain line in To Kill a Mockingbird brought up this particular memory. "I wondered if anybody had ever called her 'ma'am' or 'Miss Mayella' in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like?" In this scene, Scout is talking about Mayella Ewell and her reaction to common courtesy in the courtroom. Scout can't understand why Mayella would believe courtroom etiquette to be mocking. She knows that her father is only being polite, as he is with everyone. She also knows that the Ewell family is the disgrace of the town. She knows that Mayella's family has been mocked for generations. What she doesn't know is how they feel about it. …show more content…
Mayella proves that isn’t true, in the way she reacts to what most would consider basic manners. All her life she’s been looked down on and considered trash, and when someone treats her with kindness she can only assume that he is mocking her. This is not because she is paranoid or insecure, though she may be. She is the way she is because that is the way her life forces her to be. Maybe if Scout had known more about Mayella’s life, she could have been able to understand why she was the person she was. She could not just go back to school, or simply leave home. Scout may not have realized what life was like for her. We often do not stop to consider what life is like for