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Relationships In Kathryn Stockett's The Help

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Growing up, people enter your life and create positive and negative relationships. In Kathryn Stocketts’s The Help, Aibileen Clark had relationships on both sides of the spectrum. Her relationship with Eugenia "Skeeter” Phelan is a strange but very positive relationship. This is because of Skeeter’s kindness and her strive for knowledge about the opposing race. Their relationship is special because throughout the novel, both of these two women make a favorable transition into noticeably different people. Skeeter’s characteristics allow her to break down the racial barriers that occur in this segregated city, illustrate to Abilene and others that she is truly curious about their feelings, and try to show the city of Jackson Mississippi that their “racial problems” need to be eliminated. Skeeter is much different than the other white ladies in her friend Elizabeth’s bridge club, and Abilene detects this trait right away. The first sight of Skeeter …show more content…

It was somewhat shunned for a white lady to have such a close friendship with a maid but Skeeter had a mission and planned to write about her thoughts anyway she could. Skeeter grew up having a maid and the two were very close, but she still did not know what it was like to be a maid. Skeeter knew that writing the book and getting into such a close friendship with a maid would make her unpopular but she risked it all to speak her mind. The relationship between Abilene and Skeeter is far from normal but good. They showed others that “racial barriers” are not important. They had a goal and they wanted to share the maids’ stories with whoever would read. Their friendship showed that it’s okay to be different and that befriend people even if it is not “socially acceptable.” Friendships like this one are very positive because it allows people to really open up and trust others, as Abilene trusted

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