Racism Exposed In Elie Wiesel's The Help

The book , The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is about a women named Aibileen who is a black maid. She is taking care of her 17th white baby now. She works for a woman named Miss Leefolt. Aibileen has never disobeyed an order in her life and never intends to do so. Her friend Minny is the exact opposite. When she is around her boss, she has to hold herself back from sassing them all the time. Skeeter Phelan is different than the rest of the white ladies. She thinks that blacks aren’t all that bad. She decides to write a book about the lives of maids for white ladies. Otherwise known as the Help. She with the help of Aibileen and Minny hope to create a book that starts a revolution about what white people think about blacks.

The book “The Help”, written by Kathryn Stockett, is a book that takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, around the 1960's, when the blacks were segregated from the whites. The story is mainly about a black woman Aibileen whose main job is to take care of children as well as to handle household duties. Along the way they meet a woman Skeeter's whose lifelong dream is to become a writer however the only job she can find, is with the Jackson Journal writing a housekeeping advice column which she knows very little about. To succeed in the job, Skeeter turns to her friend's maid, Aibileen, for answers and help to write the column.

The Help is written from the view of the three main characters Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter from a small town named Jackson, Mississippi. First Aibileen, she is one of the primary African-American maids in the novel that works for the Leefolt family. Secondly, Minny is the feisty, smart-mouthing African American maid that works for Mrs. Holbrook till she is fired and later begins working for Mrs. Foote. Lastly, Skeeter is a young Caucasian woman who has returned from graduating college and dreams to be a writer. Skeeter hopes to change the typical southern views Jackson has of blacks that is apparent on every page of this novel. This sparks an ambition to write a book about the “helps” point of view on working for white families that is so

The novel, “The Help”, written by Katherine Stockett, is a story written about black maids in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. In this novel woman were the queens of the domestic world whilst men climbed the corporate ladder, earning money to provide for their families. The more money the man earned, the more powerful and successful the his family was perceived. There were huge gaps in society based on race - black people were believed to be the serving class, and not as the white people’s equals. Through the character main Skeeter we are able see a change in this opinion this over time. Through the influence of Aibileen, Hilly Hillbrook and Charlotte Phelan we are able to see the different characters in the novel and how they are used

In The Help, Kathryn Stockett presents the view that racism is often used in societies as a way to profit off an oppressed culture, mostly when associated with social classes. Throughout the novel, there are many events where prejudice is present, as the colored maids are always being treated with disrespect and are never thanked for their assistance in households. One of the main, and most obvious, issues in the book is the treatment of people based on their skin tone, and this being prevalent in the story allows for the reader to understand the culture of African Americans during the 1960’s in the southern United States. First, the theme’s presence in the novel is represented when Hilly introduces her bathroom initiative to Miss Leefolt,

“ The Help” is about the lives of black maids and how they were treated in society in a time of segregation. Many of the Maids were treated badly and not treated as equal just because of the sake of their color. The Protagonist of the story, Skeeter, then takes on the challenge to write a book that will inform others about the lives of the maids and to make people respect them more. In the Novel of To Kill A Mockingbird, there is a trial that takes place of a man named Tom Robinson who’s accused of rape, which really changes on how the main character and others around her perceive the segregation and racism going on that time.  

The main theme of the book “The Help” is that racism against the whites and blacks were a big issue back in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960’s, black people were denied the right to an education and such, and were either made up as housekeepers and slaves to the white people. In the book, the white people would call the blacks vulgar names such as, dirty, worthless and other words that should not be mentioned. As you can tell, the whites showed how more privileged they were rather than the blacks. Now, as for the characters in the book, basically, all of the people were racists, most couldn’t even realize it, the only white person who was not racist was Skeeter, she gave the black maids particularly,

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, is a historic novel set in the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. This story is told from the perspective of two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, and a white southern girl, Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan. It focuses in on the black maids, their lives, and their work environment. This book digs into the details of how “the help” were treated even after the civil war had ended. The maids in this novel decide to work together with Skeeter to show all of America exactly how Jackson treats their “help”. The Help shows how black people were treated after the civil war, good and bad, and the views of the maids during this time about this issue all through a book within a book.

Throughout the novel, "The Help" the Caucasian culture is the dominant culture and has positive and negative impacts on the plot, characters, and themes, but mostly negative impacts. Since, this book take place during the 1960s, there was a lot of racism in the United States, and so African Americans were inferior to Caucasians. The Caucasian culture has a negative effect on African Americans due to the racism and separation, since this book took place in the 1960s, as mention earlier. For example, all black maids within Aibileen's community would have to use their separate bathroom since "they carry different kinds of diseases than we" (Stockett 10).

The novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett took place in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s, a period that saw the segregation of blacks and the prejudice of whites dominate the southern United States. The novel focused on two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, and their work environment with their white employers. The racism of many high society women, like Hilly Holbrook and Elizabeth Leefolt, was showcased throughout the story. Skeeter was the outlier in her society. After returning to Jackson following her graduation from the University of Mississippi, she wanted to do something more with her life than be a white married housewife. As a result, she worked with Aibileen, Minny and other black maids to write a book that revealed the relations and treatment that maids experienced from their employers. The harsh treatment of blacks in the south and the successes and difficulties of The Civil Rights Movement were displayed through the lives of Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter.

Racial segregation is the practice of isolating a group of people based on their race, class or ethnic group. This practice provides the means of maintaining the economic advantages and superior social status of the politically dominant group, and was primarily employed by white populations to maintain their dominance over African- Americans (Britannica). Racial segregation was implemented or at least encouraged, and as a result has negatively affected the lives of African-Americans as a whole. The Help written by Kathryn Stockett takes place in the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi, a place where racial discrimination occurs on a large scale, and is actively practiced and enforced by the government and the people within the city. The protagonists, Skeeter, Aibeleen and Minny all fall victims to this segregated as they attempt to reduce the racial tension in the city (Shmoop). Much of the novel depicts the typical life of African-American maids and the inequality they experience in comparison to southern white women (Literature Nerd). Because of this segregated setting, characters are treated differently based on their ethnicity and status. There is a large contrast between how society treats the two African American maids, Aibeleen and Minny, compared to the “socially acceptable” yet different white woman, Skeeter and Hilly.

The Help is a fictional novel published in 2009 by Kathryn Stockett. Based in the 1960s, the book follows a young woman named, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan. After graduating from college, Skeeter comes home to find that the maid she grew up with, Constantine, has quit. While thinking about Constantine,and others, life as the help, it inspires her to want to tell the truth about the help. However, it is hard for Skeeter to recruit the help of any maid.

The Help is a debut novel written by Kathryn Stockett. This book has 3 main characters - Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter. Skeeter interviewed local maids for a book that will show their point of view as being an African American and working for white families. The main argument of this book was about African Americans being able to survive against all odds, due to the color of their skin. This story grabs you and never let you go. I have gain so much knowledge from reading this novel. I have learned about what African Americans went through when Jim Crows Laws were around. The book is touching. It’s never a dull moment. I never wanted to put this book down, because it had all of my attention. It had very interesting facts. This is a fiction book, but it has a lot of events that African Americans faced on a daily basis during the Civil Rights Movement. Even though, this is a serious topic, it was very entertaining as well. This will by far be on the top of my list as one of the best books I ever read. I recommend everyone to read this book if you want knowledge about African American daily life during the Civil Rights Movement.

Many of the interactions with the white women and their maids were accurate to what was happening. The maids were treated poorly and were made out to be lesser people according to whites. Black people were devalued and treated horribly just because they had a different skin color. Hilly tries to do everything possible to segregate white and blacks in their homes, such as different toilets. She is a heartless employer who fires Minnie for using their toilet. Hilly later goes on to fire her second maid for taking a ring because she was in desperate need for money to send one of her twins to college and she sees to it that she is put into jail. Following in Hilly’s footsteps, Elizabeth is not much better than her. Elizabeth gives into the pressure of treating these women as lesser human beings. Elizabeth is rarely ever around and does not care for her daughter, May at all. She ends up firing Abelieen for stealing silverware, which she did not do. This broke Aibileens heart because she had to leave her baby that she cared so much for and had raised. Hilly and Elizabeth are accurate representations of most white women of the 1960s. They believed their skin color was of more worth, were cruel to anyone not of their skin color and very absent from their

Although the maids were struggling and going through a difficult time in 1960’s, The Help portrays that their family members were too. Segregated society against the backdrop of the growing US civil rights movement in the 1960’s has an impacted. “Race also determines who has access to educational, occupational, and economic opportunity. Racial tensions are high as white community members employ violence and coercion to try to keep the Civil Rights Movement from sweeping into their Mississippi town” (Shmoop Editorial Team). The white community in the movie continue to keep the black women as their servants throughout their lives. As Skeeter the white lady, who writes a book about The Help and portrays through the book that the African American women go through. As the white women of Jackson, Mississippi read the book they began to act more violent to the black women. The book is away as the black women to make a statement about the civil rights they have.