2. Atticus called the defendant, Tom Robinson
to the stand to testify.
Tom tried to take the oath, his withered left
hand slipped from the Bible, further proof
that it was useless to him.
Tom admitted that he'd been in trouble with
the law one other time and spent thirty days
in jail because he couldn't pay the fine.
With his record exposed, Atticus moved the
questioning toward the case at hand.
3. Tom explained that he passed Mayella Ewell's
home every day on his way to work.
he would always tip his hat to Mayella, and
one day she asked him to come inside the
fence and chop up a chiffarobe for her.
After he did the chopping, she said she
guessed she'd have to pay him for it, but he
refused the money.
On the evening in question, he recounts, she
asked him to come inside the house and fix a
door, while there’s nothing wrong with the
door.
4. She asked him to lift a box down from a
dresser.Tom climbed on a chair, she grabbed
his legs, scaring him so much that he jumped
down.
She hugged him around the waist and asked
him to kiss her.
As she struggled, her father appeared at the
window, calling Mayella a whore and
threatening to kill her. Tom fled.
Link Deas, Tom’s white employer, stands up
and declares that in eight years of work, he
has never had any trouble from Tom and for
that, he was expelled by Judge Taylor for
interrupting.
5. Link Deas represents the diametric opposite
of prejudice. The fact that Tom is black
doesn’t factor into Deas’s assessment of him.
Mr. Gilmer gets up and cross-examines Tom
causing Tom to admit that he has the
strength, even with one hand, to choke the
breath out of a woman and sling her to the
floor.
He kept asking about his motives for always
helping Mayella with her chores, until Tom
declares that he felt sorry for her.
This statement puts the courtroom ill at
ease—in Maycomb, black people aren’t
supposed to feel sorry for a white person.
6. Mr. Gilmer reviews Mayella’s
testimony, accusing Tom of lying about
everything.
The racist Mr. Gilmer believes that Tom must
be lying, must be violent, must lust after
white women—simply because he is black.
Dill cries and complains to Scout about Mr.
Gilmer’s rude treatment of Tom Robinson
during the questioning. Dill is still a
child, and he responds to wickedness with
tears.
They both encounter Mr. Dolphus
Raymond, the rich white man with the colored
mistress and mulatto children outside the
