What is the work?[]
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1960 Southern Gothic novel written by the late Harper Lee about the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. The book follows the life of a young girl named Scout Finch and her brother Jem. Their father Atticus is a renowned defense attorney who is appointed with defending a black man who was accused of raping a white girl. However given that the setting of the story takes place in the Deep South during the Jim Crow Laws, it doesn't seem promising,
Who is he?[]
Bob Ewell is the patriarch of the Ewell family and the local white trash in Maycomb County who was loathed by everyone. He is an abysmal father who hunts out of season and oftentimes on other people's lands to feed his children. The Ewells have other issues such as how it's a family tradition to send a kid to school for one day, and they are counted for the rest of the semester despite clearly not being present.
What has he done?[]
Perhaps in part of being named after a famous Confederate soldier, Ewell wanted to have some respect from the people in Maycomb County. He accuses a poor black man named Tom Robinson of raping his eldest daughter Mayella, which at that time, it was an automatic death sentence if the one accused was black. Atticus Finch is assigned with defending Tom in court and he uses Tom's condition as the cornerstone for his defense.
You see, Tom's left arm was mangled having been caught in a cotton gin accident and how Mayella's facial injuries did not line up with it thus meaning that it was a left-handed assailant who had assaulted her. Tom also explains that he would assist Mayella with doing chores around the house because he felt sorry for her, something which shocks the jury. It is there that Mayella kisses him and tells him that she never kissed a man before and what she did with her father didn't count thus implicating that not only does Ewell abuse her physically, but it extends to being incestuous as well.
Despite Atticus' brilliant observations, Tom is nevertheless found guilty by an all-white jury, and is sentenced to death. While Ewell is delighted to have gotten Tom sentenced - as well as hearing that he died when he tried to escape prison only to be shot down - he is not granted his "hero" status and he grows increasingly violent. After the trial, he spits in Atticus' face in spite and later tries to break into the house of Judge Taylor. Sometime after the death of Tom, Ewell and his children harass Helen Robinson, Tom's widowed wife, only for the sheriff of the town to arrive and intimidate him.
To complete his revenge, he stalks Atticus' children when they were heading home through the woods after a school play. Producing a knife, he attempts to kill the two children but in the nick of time, Boo Radley rescues the children and gives Ewell a taste of his own knife. The sheriff arrives knowing what truly happened, but he lets it slide as his way of protecting Boo Radley from any unwanted attention.
Heinous standard[]
Sentences an innocent man to death because he was black whilst additionally wanting the town to view him in a heroic light. He uses the system established in the 1930s (Jim Crow laws) to his advantage making him completely aware of how corrupt Maycomb is. It is also shown that he was the one who beat his daughter and from what Mayella described him doing to her, it is heavily implied that he also raped his own daughter
Besides that, he also has two counts of attempted murder under his belt.
Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?[]
That's a negatory. He has no excuses; he is a terrible father who doesn't bother to do right by his children instead crudely giving them food by illegally hunting out of season and off people's properties. He abuses Mayella to the point she is terrified of him, and it is explicitly implicated that she was also sexually abused.