Everyone has to make a difficult choice in their lives, and they most likely had to suffer the consequences. In this book, a few characters had to make a quick decision and ended up suffering the consequences.
The character I chose to write about is, Tom Robinson. Tom Robinson is a (black) man who in the book is portrayed as a “rapist” and is constantly being harassed by the townspeople in a racist community. In the beginning of the book Tom is in court for allegedly “raping” Mayella Ewell. Atticus Finch is his lawyer and is fighting to keep Tom out of jail. Mayella claims that Tom “had beaten and raped her ” and had the bruise on her face as evidence, but when the judge asked to see his arm he said that, “one arm is 12 inches shorter than the other”. That statement right there should of cleared his name but because of him living in a racist community, he still didn't have a chance. In another part of the book, it said in a Newspaper article that “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” This quotes proves my point that he didn't have a chance when he was up against a racist jury.
Finally, the lawyer let Tom tell his own story. He claimed that, Mayella asked Tom to come and fix her door and when he came inside to help he discovered that the door wasn't broken and when he turned around to tell her that, she threw herself at him and began hugging him, and when Tom pushed her off, her dad Bob Ewell walked in and Tom ran.
He also said that, he felt bad for Mayella, and the jury wasn't happy with him saying that because, why would a black man feel bad for a white lady, basically saying in any case it should be the other way around. Some speculated that it was Mr. Bob Ewell who beat his daughter and he was furious with that accusation.
By the end of the book, despite all of Atticus`s tryings to help him win the trial, Tom was still found guilty and taken away. And once things were calming down in Maycomb another tragedy hit, Tom Robinson was killed by a gunshot after trying to escape.
The message of this story is, don't judge, and also don`t kill a mockingbird because “Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don`t eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thats why it`s a sin to kill a mockingbird” In this book Tom represents a mockingbird, because he didn't do anything and wasn't going to do anything in the first place. But he was still killed and thats the sin the quote was referring to, killing someone or maybe something (Bird) for no reason.
Tom is a prime example of a person who made a decision and had to live with the consequences, unfortunately for Tom that choice cost him his life. All he did was try and help Mayella and didn't know that it was going to explode into this big thing where he constantly gets called a “rapist” and is sent to jail where he is killed.
