Analysis Of The Help By Kathryn Stockett

The color of one's skin does not define them; nor does it give people the power to define others. Kathryn Stockett's novel, "The Help" is an eye-opening and awe-inspiring story about coloured women speaking their truth. The truth is spoken through Skeeter, a white woman who believes that change is needed in Jackson, Missippi. After hearing about Aibileen's late son's idea about writing a book of what it's like to work for the white men, Skeeter asks if she could write a story about the help. A dozen maids tell their stories of what it's like working for the white folks, and with this truth comes consequences, betrayal, and the loss of friends.

The movie, The Help, is based on the book written by Kathryn Stockett. It was released in 2011 and directed by Tate Taylor (Taylor, 2017). The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s, and it is about the experiences black women had as maids for white families. These women decided to risk it all and tell their stories in an effort to show what is was really like for them (Taylor, 2011). The Help illustrates how these women fought racism and prejudice by becoming unified with one another. This paper will address how prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and inequality affect the characters and their relationships in the story.

When I hear the word villain I immediately visualize Darth Vader from the motion picture Star Wars, but I’ve read about a new kind of villain, a more sinister villain whose name is Hilly Holbrook. Hilly is the main antagonist in the novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett, furthermore makes you consider that maybe Darth Vader isn’t so merciless after all.

The novel, “The Help”, by Kathryn Stockett, focuses on the social issue of segregation in the United States, specifically in the south. Stockett demonstrates the issue of racial segregation between blacks and whites in the 1960’s by applying allusions, and point of view.

The three main voices of the story use their writing to express themselves. Aibileen talks about her son and the experiences she's faced working as a domestic servant. Skeeter uses writing at her new job to reach and do her dream of becoming a professional writer in the future.Minny wants to help the maids and get their stories told so people could see how much one goes through. Elaine Stein offers Skeeter advice telling her to "Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else." (83)

Despite its recognition for giving a voice to the unheard African American domestic workers, the multi-nominated book turned movie, The Help written by Kathryn Stockett, still perpetuates numerous stereotypes (Stockett). The book and movie pull characters that match into the black mammy, strong

This paper examines the theme of deception within Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help. It particularly focuses on the oppression of minorities as a consequence of deceptive attitudes that existed strongly within the context Stockett writes, 1960’s society in Jackson Mississippi. The paper focuses on two main groups of minorities, the African Americans as a racial minority, and females as a gender minority.

    In the novel The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, an African American help maid, Aibileen, works for a white family that treats her rudely because of the color of her skin, but a white woman named Skeeter decides to write about Aibileen and the truth behind the treatment towards the help community.  Throughout the book, Stockett establishes a depressing and sorrowful tone by showing the way white people treat African Americans’ during this time period. An example of this shown in the beginning of the story when Aibileen says, “I lost my own boy, Treelore, right before I started waiting on Miss Leefolt” (2).  Stockett utilizes this scene to explain how difficult and brutal Aibileen’s life is from the start, which creates

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, is a fictitious novel based on the lives and events of domestic help in Jackson Mississippi at the beginning of the civil rights movement. Stockett uses abbreviated Jim Crow laws taken from actual legislation that existed during that time in various areas of the text. She also pulls from her memories of the family maid, Demetrie, and of growing up in the South. While the novel is based on fiction, its reception was divided. Many believe the novel to be correct of the time and took offence to the way it was written.

Kathryn Stockett’s choice to write the point of view of black women in The Help using the African American Vernacular was a very bold choice. Before reading this book, I found myself concerned with her using African American dialect on the black characters in this book. Kathryn Stockett is a white woman, so you would think she wouldn’t get it. There was so much that could’ve gone wrong with this, and yet she still took the risk.

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is an emotional and thrilling novel about love and loss. In 2011 the book came to life in an inspirational movie directed by Tate Taylor. I chose to read The Help because it is a New York Times Bestseller and it was recommended by so many readers. After reading Stockett’s novel a member from NPR.org stated, “This could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird...If you read only one book...let this be it.”

Much has been made of the 1950s culture in America. Many look back on it fondly as a time when family values held strong and people followed the ideal path laid out for them. Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help, pulls back the pretty curtain on southern life in that era, showing the grime and dust resting on the metaphoric window sill. While her story focuses mainly on the injustices of institutional racism in Jackson, Mississippi, it also sheds light on the stifling gender roles of the era. Both the novel and the film adaptation epitomize 1950s southern gender ideals and how they set expectations for women both in the home and outside of it.

Minny exposes to so many abuses by her husband as a result of his dismissal from his job by Hilly’s husband, one of the white women that exists in the published book. Hilly also squeeze out Aibileen that she’ll send her to the jail when she knew that there are chapters about her friend Elizabeth on the published book, but Aibileen follows the same way of bargaining. She threaten her to show up the she is the woman who exists in the last chapter in the help, a woman who ate the defecating pie. And Skeeter has a chance to work as a copy editor in New York City at Harper’s Magazine. But she finally refused in order to not leave the black maids. At last but not least, Kathryn Stocett succeeds in the use of theme of anger throughout The Help. Although it is a fictional story, but it based on a true story that Stockett lives one like it. So the goal beyond this story that it has achieved the aim of writer. The Help helps Stockett to think in the place she lives currently, because the fictional characters existed in the story like a lot many of women who live there. One thinks that Stockett achieved goal of literature according to them of anger throughout alerting people who read this book will be helped to care for their nannies and helpers in a far better

Kathryn Stockett was a very talented writer, in her book the help she writes about the quality of life. She uses so many different themes throughout the novel. In her own words she writes about her experience about life like in Jackson Mississippi. The Help by Kathryn Stockett emphasizes the life of a black maids taking care of a white families and the struggles they had with the constant reminder that they are not good enough. The maids soon had enough of the way they were mistreated and put up a fight to get “revenge” on the white families that disrespected them. The main themes that are found in the novel are race, gender, and equality. In the help the themes race, gender, and equality seems to be taking away our natural rights as a human being.

Society has changed and evolved throughout time. Perhaps one of the most significant changed in contemporary American society is the treatment towards African Americans. “The Help” a feature film directed by Tate Taylor is based on the non-fictional novel “The Help” written by author Kathryn Sockett. The feature film explores the life of African American maids of Jackson Mississippi, in the early 1960’s. The 1960’s displayed all African Americans to being left out of the “American dream” through neglect and racism. African Americans faced prejudice and discrimination in almost every aspect of their life, from jobs to housing and even their education. They were denied the right to sit at the same lunch counter or use the same public rest