In How to kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson overcomes a lot of obstacles.
Everything that Tom Robinson goes through really changes him. Here are a
few ways Tom Robinson overcomes obstacles throughout the book.
One obstacle Tom Robinson faces is the court case. He was very honest
throughout the entire case yet was continuously accused of rape and
giving her a black eye.
“Then what happened?”
“Mr. Finch, I was runnin‘ so fast I didn’t know what happened.”
“Tom, did you rape Mayella Ewell?”
“I did not, suh.”
“Did you harm her in any way?”
“I did not, suh.”
“Did you resist her advances?”
Page.104
The
plaintiff made up many different realistic scenarios that could have
been possible and made it seem like Tom actually did them when in
reality he didn’t. One of the things he said was that tom was strong
enough to lift up Mayella with one hand. Even though his left arm was
crippled and Mayella’s dad is left handed they still made it seem like
it was Tom.
Another
obstacle Tom faced in To Kill a Mockingbird was racism. Throughout the
entire book there was tons of racism mostly against Tom. Especially in
court when Tom was clearly not guilty they would still say he is guilty
because he is a black man. Whether it was in court or anywhere else
people did not treat Tom right throughout the entire book.
"Scout,"
said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean
anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people
use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above
themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves,
when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody."
"You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?"
"I
certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put,
sometimes—baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks
is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't
hurt you."
Pg.107
One
last obstacle Tom faced was the aftermath of the trial. He was facing
jail time and he came to the realization that he would never be treated
fairly and attempted to escape the prison but died.
“To
Maycomb, Tom's death was typical. Typical of a nigger to cut and run.
Typical of a nigger's mentality to have no plan, no thought for the
future, just run blind first chance he saw.”
Pg.128
Those are a few obstacles Tom faced in the book To Kill a Mockingbird.
