Because of how racist the society of Maycomb are, Tom Robinson gets accused of rape by Mayella Ewell, a white, lonely and unhappy daughter who gets abused by her father. Though the reader can pity her because of the abuse she gets from her father, you are still unable to forgive her from her shameful false-persecution of Tom Robinson.
Mayella Ewell persecuted Tom Robinson "in an effort to get rid of her own guilt" as said by Atticus Finch. "She was guilty not because of a crime she committed, but that she had merely broken a time-honored code of society". This is to tempt a Negro. She had kissed Tom Robinson, a black man, "which to do so, was something unspeakable in the society" of Maycomb. Mayella knew well enough of the consequences of her actions, but her desires overpowered the code. Once she had broken it, she realized what she had done and did something "like every child has done-she tried to put the evidence of her offence away from her" and pretended to have been raped by Tom Robinson, so no one would've known what she did. No one would've known that she, a white female, had tempted and kissed a Negro. .
Although persecuting a man just to hide your feelings about him might sound silly, it isn't in the town of Maycomb. This is because everyone in the town would blindly take the word of a white man, rather than a black man, even if the black man had done nothing but tried to help, or in Tom Robinson's case - "felt sorry".
Tom Robinson being one of the books key "mockingbirds" is an important symbol of innocence being destroyed by evil. Even after the spectacular case which Atticus put forward and the undeniable truth that Tom Robinson had not raped Mayella Ewell, he was still found guilty and later killed as he attempted to escape. This case causes Jem to have his good ideals shaken badly as he sees the injustice of Tom Robinson's verdict.
Boo Radley is the other key mockingbird of the novel.
