The main character in the novel “The Help” written by Kathryn Stockett, is twenty-three young white woman by the name of Skeeter Phelan. A privileged young white woman living with her parents on their cotton plantation in Jackson Mississippi. This strong character doesn’t look at the help as the help. In simpler words she is very none bias. She feels the maids should have more of a voice, she wants the entire world to hear the stories behind the help.
“When I was born my older brother, Carlton looked at me and declared to the hospital room: it’s not a baby, it’s a skeeter! I was long and leggy and mosquito thin… The name grew even more accurate with my pointy, beak like nose when I was a child.” –p27. She wasn’t cut from the same cloth as
Her novel is not only devoid of any deep insight into black women’s lives, it exists in a cultural vacuum. ”(13) According to Sybil Steinberg from the Washington post, “Stockett doesn't sledgehammer her ironies though she skirts caricature with a “white trash” woman who was married into an old Jackson family. Even this character is portrayed with the compassion and humor that keeps the novel levitating above its serious theme. ”(3) From the Browse book 2009 reader Awards, “The Help is a beautiful novel, and Kathryn Stockett is a natural storyteller with her fingers on the pulse of the best reads this year. Her characters, their stories, and the complex questions they raise will linger deep in your mind long after you’re done reading.
The movie The Help and the book To Kill a Mockingbird both take place in the south during the mid 1900s, a time of great racial discrimination and cultural hatred. The main characters in both stories, Skeeter and Atticus Finch, each have a cause that they are actively working towards throughout the movie and book respectively, within their small southern town. Both of their goals are to help African Americans escape and overcome the racial prejudice they undergo on a daily basis. Skeeter’s methods are more effective to helping her cause because she actually succeeds in her plan to expose the racial inequities of her town, although, Atticus tries his best and means well, he doesn’t actually win his case defending Tom Robinson, so therefore Skeeter’s methods are more direct and adequate for supporting her purpose. Skeeter’s initial goal, or cause, was to publish a book that exposed the injustices undergone by the house maids, or ‘help’ in her small southern town.
In "The Thematic Paradigm" Robert Ray argues that American movie heroes can be classified as outlaw heroes or official heroes or the merging of the two (the reluctant hero). This he says reflects the contradictory ideologies (which include individual and community values) which underpin American society. Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan in The Help (2011) and two other women in Jackson Mississippi in the 1960s cross racial boundaries to write a book that forever changes their town and the way women view one another. Skeeter is an outlaw hero, and this can be demonstrated by using Ray's criteria of "aging," "women and society," and "politics and the law." Skeeter’s character represents Ray’s theme of “aging” as an outlaw hero.
In novelist Kathryn Stockett’s historical fiction, The Help (2009), she portrays the voicelessness of the maids in the 1960’s through the portrayal of their social inequalities to the white superior, their unjust firings by the people in power, and
In The Help by Kathryn Stockett, two of the main characters, Minny Jackson and Miss Celia Foote, each undergo a different epiphany that changes their thoughts about another person. Minny realizes that Skeeter’s book is significant to her life; Miss Celia Foote realizes that being friends with the evil Hilly is not what she wants. Minny, a black maid in Mississippi, has an epiphany that revolves around the importance of Skeeter’s book, which is about black maids’ everyday lives, plays in her life. Earlier in The Help, Minny wants nothing to do with Skeeter’s book. Minny makes her position in the book obvious when she states that there is “no way I’m gonna do something crazy as that [helping write the book]” (Stockett 129).
Skeeter is adored and respected by many readers for being brave and compassionate while developing a broader perspective of the world she lives in. Throughout my life I have also been a bundle of contradictions. In all honesty, I have been viewed throughout
The Help, a novel written by Kathryn Stockett demonstrates the central theme of searching for the truth in written words. Skeeter is a journalist who has many differents views on blacks rather than most stereotypical whites. She was best friends with Constantine, a colored woman, since she had been young. For the reason of her love for writing, Skeeter gets a job at the Jackson Journal to write a column in the newspaper. However, the column focused on work, relationships, and other such things that she had not had much experience with.
Inequality was something that happened often in this movie. The Help shows different African American families and how they go about daily life. When the main character, Skeeter, a White American, comes home from college, she works with her friend’s maid, Aibileen, to put together the stories of twelve African American maids. During the time
Skeeter is seen to develop in two different ways: a young woman who doesn 't have marriage as a first priority anymore and a woman who later sees an injustice to the black help. Skeeter is a white socialite who just graduated from college with a degree in writing. She came back to Jackson Mississippi with the idea of starting to write for book publishing companies but arrives home only for her mother to question her about marriage. Upon the many
The two narrators, Aibileen and Minny, who are ‘helps’, bring to life the issue of racial segregation in the text. The fact that they are ‘help’ allows them to give a credible first-hand account of all the hardships that the black community have to endure. Stockett gives the reader a chance to relate to them as human beings thus recognizing the purposelessness of this racism. Skeeter is arguably the most significant narrator as she is white. Through her, we are not only hopeful for the future of an equal society, but we can also see just how much of an impact racism has on the perception of black people in this society.
Although the black maids endure such indignity, none will share their experiences with Skeeter in fear of being discovered by the town’s whites. Aibileen is among those who refuse, but one day at church the preacher exhorts the congregation to have courage and speak the truth. He states that, "Courage isn't just about being brave. Courage is daring to do what is right in spite of the weakness of our flesh. And God tells us, commands us, compels us, to love."
The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s. Skeeter, a southern society girl, interviews the black women who have spent their lives being servants for wealthy white Southern families. There are various scenes throughout the film that show social stratification, racial inequalities, gender inequalities, and class inequalities. Massey’s Social Stratification Theory states that humans allocate people to different categories. These categories often lead to inequality which is implemented socially.
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
1.0 INTRODUCTION The Help is an example of American drama film. It was released in August 9, 2011 and its length was 146 minutes and directed by Tate Taylor. The film was adapted to a novel, where there has been a long tradition of African- American women serving as “The Help” for upper-middle class white woman and their families. Descriptions of historical events of the early activities of thecivil rights movement are peppered throughout the novel, as are interactions between the maids and their white employers.
That was the real plot of the story. In skeeters words, “Was this really my story to tell? On the other hand, I just wanted the story to be