Tom the ManĮven when Tom appears in person for the first time at the trial, everyone else gets to give their version of what happened before he has a chance to speak. (Click the character infographic to download.) At the Trial: Tom the Beast vs. It's up to us to make up our own minds about Tom-and about the people who judge him. So why don't we see Tom until the day of the trial? The obvious answer is that we don't because Scout doesn't-but the novel could have brought Tom and Scout together at some point, so why didn't it? One answer is that if she had seen him, we wouldn't have the big reveal at the trial of Tom's disability, while doing things this way allows us to wonder along with the rest of the audience why Atticus is making such a big deal of Ewell's left-handedness.īut there might be more going on here: how real a person does Tom seem before we see him? And how sympathetic does he seem? Getting an idea of Tom only through what people say about him puts us as readers in a similar position to the people of Maycomb in terms of how much knowledge we have about him. The conflict is between white people, with Tom as the unseen, powerless object they're fighting over. It's not until after they leave that Tom's disembodied voice comes out of the darkness.Ī soft husky voice came from the darkness above: "They gone?"Ītticus stepped back and looked up. When the lynch mob turns up at the jail where he's being held, they face off with Atticus while Tom himself listens silently from inside. Tom himself is basically absent from these debates, which assume either that he's guilty or that, regardless of his guilt or innocence, he should be punished for getting anywhere near Mayella.Īnd Tom stays invisible through most of the novel. Tom Robinson's name comes up long before he appears in person, but the main issue setting tongues wagging isn't whether Tom is innocent or guilty, but Atticus's resolve to give him a good defense. He's also a litmus test for Maycomb's racism-and, unfortunately for him, it fails. Like Boo Radley, Tom Robinson isn't just an individual.
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