Book Summary: The Help

The Help tells the story of a young, white woman trying to write a novel to expose the reality that black women face in the south. Though the film highlights some important parts of the Civil Rights struggle, it downplays the extent of the issues. Though it perfectly portrays the terrorizing reign of whites over blacks, overall The Help is historically inaccurate by stereotyping characters, telling a good vibes only story, and making an unrealistic case to hit a target

The three girls working together begins to create the solution to the main conflict. The main conflict in this case is blacks are being treated in a way that is not fair. They are being treated as if they are disease carrying things. Skeeter wants to change that perspective on people. That’s why she wants to write a book on how black maids are treated in Mississippi. “I turn and hear Pascagoula’s knock on my door. That’s when the idea hit me. No. I couldn’t. That would be . . . crossing the line.” - (Page 104) This was foreshadowing what Skeeter would do next. It let the reader know what was going to happen. Minny and Aibileen are there to help Skeeter with her book. They are the interviews. At first, the book starts out with Aibileen doing a normal day of work. She notices the Skeeter isn’t like all the other ladies. She’s more polite. When Skeeter gets a job at the local newspaper she starts to go to Aibileen for help with the Miss Myrna articles. She is even willing to pay her to help her. “ ‘For your help,’ I say quietly, ‘ I’ve put away five dollars for every article. It’s up to thirty-five dollars now.’ ” (Page 126) This shows that Skeeter is quite

Towards the end of Stockett’s novel, Aibileen has grown older and is now caring for two kids in the Leefolt house. Skeeter now tells Aibileen she has gotten a letter to go to New York and work for Miss Stein. When she goes, someone will need to take over the Miss Murna columns at the Jackson Journal. Here, Skeeter gives Aibileen the chance to take over for her. She also includes that she will receive the same amount of pay as she did. To this, Aibileen responds, “Me? Working for the white newspaper? I go to the sofa and open thee notebook, see them letters and articles from past times. Miss Skeeter set beside me (512)”. This is Aibileen basically conquering the issue of racism. The fact that Miss Skeeter put in such a good word about her that she got the job without an interview says wonders.

Mrs.Skeeter’s story could be a strong supporting plot to the journey of the two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, but instead her story is the main focus of the movie. This simple fact makes the film seem to almost downplay the racist attitudes towards black people in the 1960s. The movie could've gone down a much more horrific and revealing plotline if they had made Aibileen or Minny the main character. If the director had gone down this path the movie could have communicated a much deeper message and would have allowed the watchers to be revealed to some first hand accounts of racism. Although the movie does tell some stories of the two black maids quite well with some of their perspective shown, throughout the entire movie there seemed to be a “sugar coating” over everything. It was as if the producers wanted to “protect” their audience from how far the racist attitudes went and the horrific fallout from those attitudes. Also, parts of the movie seemed almost irrelevant to the main message and goals of the protagonists. Take for example the sub-plot of Skeeter finding a man. Despite it doing a good job of incorporating a secondary plot, this entire section could have been removed for something that better related to the theme of the movie. They could've put in more about the pasts of either Aibileen or Minny to further communicate how society viewed down upon black people and saw them as little better than rodents. Within the movie, the fact that Skeeter is the main character at all almost seems to take away from the other two protagonists, Aibileen and Minny. A lot of the time in the movie the heavier parts are broken up by the lighter more bright plot line of Skeeter. An example of this within the movie is when a black person is shot by a member of the KKK, and Aibileen has to run back to Minny's house and compose herself with Minny. This entire scene is extremely tense and is wonderful at

When you first meet Skeeter Phelan, she’s fresh out of college with a shiny new diploma from Ole Miss University. She’s never been in a relationship, her friends are all married now, and the only thing her mother wants is that shiny diamond ring on her left hand. She describes herself as physically unappealing from the day she was born. The name “Skeeter” was given to her by her brother the day she was born. Everywhere she goes she’s constantly being reminded that she’s not pretty and not married. Skeeter also goes in to describe her time in college as being the odd one out despite belonging to a sorority. She said she was just quiet and got her work done as she watched each and every one of her friends drop out of college to go get married.

Skeeter is a young educated privileged daughter of a cotton plantation owner. The fact that skeeter participates through many different changes as the story progresses and realizes that it is her own choice to choose what to believe in, and shows that she remains a dynamic character (2009:63). Skeeter decides to cross dangerous lines and start writing a book that contains the real stories of the black maids in Jackson (2009:102) as a result of that skeeter became more and more distanced from her white friends , and closer to the black people remains her as a round character because of her developed personality and multiplied traits, beside from that skeeter decides to go against all the people and go her on way. On the other hand Alan Ward is a FBI agent who is a

She gets this extravagant idea to write a book about the life as a black maid. Skeeter says, “ You said to write about things that disturb me, particularly if it bothers no one else.” When she says this quote to her boss. This quote shows that Skeeter wants to go out and explore which in this case means go and make known of the blacks and what they are

The Help is a novel that explores the lives of black maids living in the racially unjust, Mississippi in the 1960s, by using the perspective of two black maids and a female, white writer. Minny and Aibileen are the two maids who are close friends and like many other maids, have spent the majority of their life cleaning up after white families and raising their kids. Skeeter is the third character the novel centers around; she fondly remembers her own maid, Constantine but lacks information about her disappearance and current whereabouts. Her ambition to write and love for her childhood career lead her and the maids to eventually come together and become involved in a dangerous project which puts all their lives at risk.

“This one’s for the white lady. Tell her we love her like, like she’s our own family.” (Page 468) - Miss Skeeter goes against Hilly when working on the book “Help,” which makes Skeeter simply an outcast in the white community. However, she is now accepted into the black community for what she has done.

She works for Elizabeth, an affluent white woman who is pregnant with her second child, even as she neglects her first child. Aibileen is the liaison between Skeeter, Elizabeth’s best friend, and the other maids.

She cannot shake the feeling of being mistreated especially since she knows that most likely the kids she raises will be just like their parents. The parents take credit for the work when they do not help take care of the children themselves. Aibileen knows it is dangerous to be talking with Miss Skeeter and helping her out with Miss Myrna but she does it anyways. After working on Miss Myrna for a while Miss Skeeter asks Aibileen if she can interview her. Initially she told Miss Skeeter she would not help her write her book because she could not risk getting caught.

To have a relationship with a person of an opposing race was atypical of the societal norms of the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. However, Aibileen and Miss Skeeter challenge this view by developing a relationship characterized by equality and kindness to create a social change.  Miss Skeeter, a recent college graduate, returns from college with a new perspective about race. With the help of the education Miss Skeeter received, she begins to dismiss society’s views. She realized quickly that her actions towards the help are much different from her peers who

The book The Help by Kathryn Stockett is about a white lady, Miss. Skeeter. She is going to write a book that speaks the truth about the life of a black maid working in southern white homes. One of the main conflicts is with Aibileen. In the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Aibileen has an internal conflict on whether or not to share her story with Miss Skeeter, so that Skeeter can put it into the book. Sharing her story is a huge danger and she is basically risking her life.

suggests that she write her stories like she writes her prayers and then read them for Skeeter to type. Later Stuart comes to apologize to Skeeter for being a jerk on their date and asks her out on another date. She reluctantly agrees and finds he’s not so bad and starts to fall for him a little bit. Skeeter also gets permission to write more stories from Mrs. Stein but she demands that they be finished in six months and that she needs stories from about 12 different maids.

One aspect that stood out to me was dialogue. Dialogue is found at the start of the scene where Skeeter is finalising the book with the maids that helped to publish The Help, (Aibileen and Minnie), they said “ So you just send it off then we wait” to which Skeeter replies “Well i still have one story left to type up but other than that were good” which the maids say “Which one you got left” , “Uhh, Mine” Skeeter replies. This is later taken to Skeeter telling