Chapter 19 - to Kill a Mockingbird

In Chapter 19 of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee expresses the effect of loneliness and isolation on a person. In the beginning of the novel, the motif of isolation is first established with the Finch's neighbor, Boo Radley. He is never seen, and is therefore thought of more as a superstition by the children. As the novel progresses and the children mature, they realize how lonely he was. Scout makes sense of Mayella's communication with Tom Robinson, a black man, by comparing her isolation to Boo Radley's: "She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years" (256). Mayella's severe isolation from the rest of the world caused her to cross the racial boundaries that are as strong as law in Maycomb, and befriend Negro Tom Robinson. Mayella Ewell was isolated because "white people wouldn't have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn't have anything to do of her because she was white" (256). Mayella was trapped in a world with only her "unhelpful siblings" and her "drunken father," since the community gave them "the back of its hand" in an effort to push them away. However, humans are social creatures, and cannot live in sanity without interaction from other people, and Mayella exemplifies this by her communication, if not friendship, with Tom Robinson. Through these pages in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee explains the fact that people need to interact with others, and will ignore all social constraints to fulfill their need.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, NY: Harper, 2010. Print