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Who is Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird?

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Book cover for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, featuring a silhouette of a child under a tree and a large moon, with the title in script and — To Kill a Mockingbird This book cover is one of many given to Harper Lee's classic work *To Kill a Mockingbird* (1960). The novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and the next year was made into an Academy Award-winning film.

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Bob Ewell is a central antagonist who represents the deep-seated prejudice and moral decay within the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama.12

Ewell is the father of Mayella Ewell, the woman who falsely accuses Tom Robinson, a Black man, of rape. During the trial, Atticus Finch presents a defense suggesting that it was actually Bob Ewell who attacked Mayella. Despite the evidence, the jury convicts Robinson, who is later killed while in custody.12

Driven by resentment toward Atticus for exposing his character in court, Ewell later attempts to attack Atticus’s children, Jem and Scout, on Halloween. During this confrontation, the town recluse, Arthur "Boo" Radley, intervenes to save the children and kills Ewell in the process. To protect the reclusive Radley from unwanted public attention, the sheriff reports that Ewell died accidentally after falling on his own knife.12