The help

THE HELP kATHRYNsTOCKETT

Jackson, Mississippi - August 1962.

Summary

It tells the story of black maids working in white Southern homes in the early 1960s and of Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a 22-year-old graduate from Ole Miss, who returns to her family's cotton plantation,to find that her beloved maid and nanny, Constantine, has left and no one will tell her why.

Summary (2)

Skeeter tries to behave as a proper Southern lady: She plays bridge with the young married women. However, her real dream is to be a writer, but the only job she can find is with the Jackson Journal writing a housekeeping advice column called "Miss Myrna." Skeeter knows little about housekeeping, so she turns to her friend's maid, Aibileen, for answers and finds a lot more.Aibileen works and keeps a tidy house, yet she still thinks about the recent loss of her own son who died in an accident at work while his white bosses turned away.

Summary 3

Skeeter is haunted by a copy of Jim Crow laws she found in the library, and she receives a letter from a publisher in New York interested in Skeeter's idea of writing the true stories of domestic servants.Skeeter approaches Aibileen . They meet clandestinely in the evenings at Aibileen's house to write the book together as the town's struggles with race heat up all around them. Aibileen brings in her best friend, Minny, a sassy maid who is repeatedly fired for speaking her mind, to tell her story, too. Hearing their stories changes Skeeter as her eyes open to the true prejudices of her upbringing. Aibileen and Minny also develop a friendship and understanding with Skeeter that neither believed possible.

Index

5. Love

4. The home

3. Society and class

2. Race

9. VideoJustice and judgment

8. Education

1. Literature and Writing

7. Gender

6. Violence

LITERATURE AND WRITING

Literature – books, newspaper articles, laws, and bills – creates challenging, and changes the racist systems that ruled Jackson. It also looks at oral and written storytelling (and even written prayers, in the case of Aibileen) as ways to build positive energy and self-esteem while creating a more just society through increased transparency. The book called Help publically reveals the points of view of the black maids working for white families in Jackson. Though this work puts the women in grave danger, they feel it's worth it to give voice to their experiences, to tell the truth – the good and bad parts of it.

race

In The Help – 1960s Jackson, Mississippi is a segregated society. There are strict rules, laws, and norms restricting the lives of the black townspeople. These rules also restrict white people who want to cross the color line.The book explores the worst of the false stereotypes about black people – that they are lazy, dirty, carry diseases, and are in general less intelligent and less valuable than whites. These ideas are woven into the fabric of everyday life in Jackson, from the laws to ordinary conversations, and how these beliefs get passed from generation to generation. It shows a deep mistrust of whites on the part of the black community, who have been betrayed by them again and again. It also shows how powerful and how dangerous it can be to challenge the stereotypes and dissolve the lines that are meant to separate people from each other on the basis of skin color.

society and class

The Help shows us a segregated society against the backdrop of the growing US Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Race is the number one determinant of a person's place in Stockett's novel. Race also determines who has access to educational, occupational, and economic opportunity. Racial tensions are high as white community members employ violence and coercion to try to keep the Civil Rights Movement from sweeping into their Mississippi town. At the same time, it shows us how, against all odds, Skeeter, a white woman, daughter of a cotton family, joins together with Aibileen and Minny, two black women, to challenge the unfair practices that make the lives of the town's black members so difficult.

the home

The novel shows how the dysfunctional social milieu created by segregation and racism influences the home lives of the characters. This society proscribes certain rules for men and certain rules for women. White women, like Elizabeth and Hilly, are expected to not work – neither in nor out of their homes. Black women are expected to work only in the homes of these women, caring for their children and cooking their meals. White women are simply tasked with being involved in social events and supervising "the help."The maids in the novel take pride in their work. But this work clearly isn't valued in this society. If the maids were being paid well, protected from abuse, treated with respect, and provided safe and comfortable work conditions, things would be different. If these women had access to jobs other than domestic work, things would be different too. The novel shows how complicated employee-employer relationships become, especially those between the black women and the white children they look after.

love

Deep love and bitter hate are ever-present in The Help, and the lines between the two emotions are often blurry. This is what we might expect from a society that teaches black people and white people to hate each other, but where they also live side by side. The novel is about trying to counteract the hate and irrationality through acts of love and courage. Many of these acts involve storytelling, conversations, interviews, reading, and writing. Through the relationships between Aibileen and Mae Mobley, and between Constantine and Skeeter, we see that lessons of love can counteract lessons of hate. This isn't a highly romantic novel, but Skeeter and Stuart's relationship offers some romantic intrigue, and Johnny and Celia offer us a glimpse of what true love can look like.

violence

The Help looks at how the white community in a Mississippi town uses physical and other forms of violence against its black citizens to try to stop the flow of change. It explores domestic and workplace violence through Leroy's beating of Minny, Elizabeth's beating of Mae Mobley, and through the stories of the maids who have been raped and brutalized on the job by their employers. When Hilly uses her influence to have Yule May sentenced to four years in the state penitentiary, we can see how the legal and penal systems can be used to inflict violence as well. The Help also looks at the violence of laws and speech that teach hate in the first place, and the power of loving speech to counteract all of that.

gender

In a Mississippi town in the early 1960s, white women are valued in society by their ability to produce children, who are then to be cared for by black women. Few jobs are available for women of both races. Black women are expected to be passive workhorses, and to sacrifice their own homes and family lives for those of their white employers. Through writing and storytelling, Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny all dare to challenge the gender roles society sets up from them and receive greater fulfillment in the process. Their challenges are also steps toward an overall healthier community in many ways.

education

This book looks at education and the unequal access to education in general for black citizens of Jackson. College for Jackson's white women is more of a place to find a husband than a place to get a good education. Skeeter is even considered a failure at college because she didn't find a husband, unlike Hilly and Elizabeth who drop out as soon as they find their not-so-charming princes. Minny and Aibileen both have little formal education but are both very literate , more so at times than many of their white counterparts, especially the female ones.

justice and judgment

Hilly's version of justice is deadly serious. She uses her social status to influence the courts and businesses in the community to punish the black women whom she targets. For many black characters in the novel there is little justice – violence and injustice is committed against them and there is little they can do to fight it. But soon speech, both written and oral, is shown as one means to counteract all this.

'Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.'

Elaine Stein includes this piece of advice in her first letter to Skeeter , offering advice on how to be a successful writer. . Though Skeeter has aspirations to be a writer, she seems to only know that she enjoys writing . Here, she learns that writing can be a vehicle for change rather than a way to pass the time . When Skeeter begins to consider what disturbs her, something that is accepted by the rest of polite society, she sees how putting a problem into words can create change. This helps Skeeter not only begin her career but to begin the process of creating change within her community.

Writing - quote

'We all know about these laws, we live here, but we don’t talk about them. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them written down.

Skeeter thinks this as she comes across the booklet of Jim Crow laws in the whites-only library. The booklet includes laws that ban marriage between Black and white people and say that Black and white people cannot be buried in the same cemetery. These laws are the backdrop for the idea of segregated bathrooms in the home . Skeeter realizes that knowing something is different from seeing it written down in black and white. Hilly sees Skeeter as dangerous once she finds the booklet of laws in her satchel, showing how no one wants to acknowledge the ugliness of these laws. Putting these laws in writing forces people to acknowledge the truth of them and therefore makes it easier to see the injustice of them.

Race

Do you have an idea?

With Genially templates, you can include visual resources to leave your audience speechless. You can also highlight a specific phrase or fact that will be etched in your audience's memory, or even embed external content that surprises: videos, photos, audios... Whatever you like! Need more reasons to create dynamic content? Well, 90% of the information we assimilate comes through our sight, and we retain 42% more information when the content is in motion.