Scout remembers that she saw a "row of red geraniums in
the Ewell yard." These flowers, planted by Mayella, are the one bright spot in an
otherwise ugly and chaotic environment, and they indicate that Mayella, alone among her
other family members, retains an appreciation for beauty, and struggles to maintain it
in a life otherwise devoid of anything refined.
Mayella has
grown up in violence and squalor. Her father is a coarse, violent drunk who is
completely lacking in principles and decency. His wife is deceased, and it has fallen to
Mayella, as the oldest, to take care of the house and raise the younger children as best
she can. With her depraved father in charge, Mayella has been subjected to every
atrocity imaginable; her life has been one long sequence of horror and abuse. Yet
despite her upbringing and the conditions in which she is forced to live, Mayella has a
spark of goodness in her, a part of her which recognizes and yearns for something
better. Scout catches a glimpse of this part of Mayella when she sees something "somehow
fragile-looking" in the otherwise "thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor." She
is able to explain this special quality in Mayella by comparing her to her father - Mr.
Ewell is filthy, customarily covered with "protective layers of dirt," while Mayella
looks "as if she trie[s] to keep clean." It is this contrast that puts Scout in mind of
the geraniums; there is something of refinement about Mayella which is lacking in the
rest of her family, something of goodness, which has not yet been snuffed out (Chapter
17).
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