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Alienation In The Help

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The life of a typical slave and/or servant of a white home owner could be described as living with little to no pay, receiving disrespect from the home owners, and lack of freedom. Aibileen Clark from the book “The Help” is a maid that has experienced first hand the everyday life of being a servant to Elizabeth Leefolt. Mrs. Leefolt was documented as a racist who seemed not to care about any servant’s issues being dealt with during the 60’s such as segregation, insolence, humiliation, and alienation.
Alienation can be defined as a withdrawing or separation of a group due to a trait that they seem to possess. The author Kathryn Stocket provided many events where alienation was shown throughout that book, for example: when Mrs. Hilly (one of Mrs. Leefolt’s friends) wanted to pass a law enforcing African Americans to have their own restrooms built outside due to the fact that she believed that “Negras” (as they called the maids in the book) carry certain diseases that could be caught by Caucasians. This event to me displays intent toward alienation due to how Kathryn Stocket portrayed Hilly’s actions to seem prejudice. Not only was this event …show more content…

After reading I infer that the Caucasian characters in the book valued separation of class which caused the “Blacks” to be treated poorly, because they have been classified to be lower than the “Whites” as a result of the “Whites” believing they were superior compared to African Americans. “Whites” in the book have begun to slowly stop making laws appointed to individuals due to their race or class. Because of Aibileen doing what she did for her race she has proven that the values of the Caucasian race in the novel could be altered to ultimately improve race relations and help with equality for the advancement of human treatment civil rights for African

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