Summary Of ' The Help '

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

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 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.

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

“The help” film is a perfect representation of how the south was and gives an idea on how bad African Americans were treated even if they were being paid and not only that but it also shows how different everything was back then. For example, as shown in the movie the women back then were quite different from today. Skeeter the main character is described as a very independent woman compared to the rest of the white female characters. She doesn’t seem to have an interest in men now but considers finding a dependable job unlike the other white females. Skeeter was also an educated woman and even had a bachelor’s degree. Back in that specific time frame this was rather odd for a lady to be educated. Skeeter tries to advocate for the events that are occurring within southern homes by writing the experiences of the Jackson, Mississippi’s black maids. Meanwhile, the film shows southern culture in great detail.

The film “The Help” (2011), is a story based on the daily lives of prominent white women and the relationships with their African-American housemaids in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s Civil Rights movement in America. A well-to-do white woman and central character in this film, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, aspires to be a journalist and decides to write and publish an exposé of the stories of the housemaids in Jackson to achieve this goal, however, only two maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson are willing to discuss their experiences with her. The other maid’s in Jackson resist telling Skeeter their stories, fearing the punishments they would endure if the authorities were to find out. In spite of this, after the malicious arrest of one of their befriended maids, all of the maids begin to share their experiences, which consist of racial hostility and being treated as intrinsically subservient to white people. The story Skeeter publishes entitled The Help, creates a disturbance among the white families in Jackson, by exposing the racism the maids are faced with, forcing the white families to reflect upon how they have treated their maids. The storyline represented in The Help exhibits examples of the primordial approach to race and ethnicity, as well as numerous sociological concepts including segregation, internalized oppression, and white privilege, which will be exemplified in this paper in order to uncover the race relations evident within this film.

The story takes place in Mississippi, August 1962, where the main characters, Aibileen, Skeeter, and Minny all live and struggle with their own problems. Skeeter is an up and coming author/journalist who thanks the black people in the service industry and wants their stories to be told to others so that things may start getting better. Aibileen is a black maid who is trying to get over her son’s death while taking care of little Mae Mobley, her employer’s child; she always reminds that child how much she loves her even though she stated this “And I just didn’t feel so accepting anymore.” (Pg.3). Minny had demons to face too as a black maid: domestic abuse from her husband, being called a thief by the community and then fight to find work after that. Even though every one of these women are in danger for trying to make Mississippi better by writing their stories, they are still willing and fight to the end.

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.

The Help was an enjoyable book. The author’s writing allowed me to relate with the characters making it enjoyable. Although the book was generally good, the most outstanding flaw of the book was the dialect of the characters. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to immerse themselves in history. It is hard to put down, and seems to be in line with historical facts.

Kathryn Stockett’s, The Help, introduces two main characters in the novel who reveal their drastic experiences of the day-to-day life of an African American during the early 1960’s. These hard working ladies, Aibileen Clark and Minny, dedicate and spend their lives taking care of white families and raising their innocent children. Discrimination played a big role in the society during this era, and was considered normal; however, these tough and independent women took every day as a new challenge to look for the the best outcome. In the novel, Kathryn Stockett interprets nature imagery to symbolize the traumatic experiences and struggles each black minority undergoes.

The movie “The Help” was based In the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. During this period of time it was very segregated, very much so that whites did not want African Americans to have contact with them, but were expected to fully take care of their children from birth to adulthood. Most of the African American maids later developed a strong bond with the children that they looked after. They tried teaching the kids to see no color, just to later witness them grow up to be brainwashed by the world to think of African Americans as less than. Except for one southern girl named Skeeter Phelan, who saw the equality in everyone. And one day she decided to interview the maids to get their perspectives on life and to get their story out to the world. At first the maids were hesitant because it would be serious consequences if anyone knew who exactly spoke up, but Skeeter did whatever she could to make sure all the maids were anonymous and no one knew. She risked many hardships like losing her relationship with her boyfriend and also building tension with the women of the Junior League. Successfully the maids stories got out and it opened eyes little by little.

Feminist theory is a term that embraces a wide variety of approaches to the questions of a women’s place and power in culture and society. Two of the important practices in feminist critique are raising awareness of the ways in which women are oppressed, demonized, or marginalized, and discovering motifs of female awakenings. The Help is a story about how black females “helped” white women become “progressive” in the 1960’s. In my opinion, “The Help” I must admit that it exposes some of our deepest racial, gender, and class wounds as individuals and social groups, and that the story behind the story is a call to respect our wounds and mutual wounding so that healing may have a chance to begin and bring social

A Tate Taylor film, The Help (2009) emphasizes the extreme, racially-charged stereotypes thus endorses racial thinking. Blacks in this film are represented broadly as common house maids, or domestic slaves, but specifically as oppressed, unhappy, impoverished, and products of hardship through the utilization of racist stereotypes and juxtaposition with the lives of affluent whites in the southern United States, a juxtaposition which immortalizes the racial gap between whites and blacks.

“The Help” is a movie about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi. The two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, tells their side of the story to a young white woman, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, who is a journalist who decides to write a book from the maids point of views. Skeeters intention for writing this book is exposing the racism they receive while working for white families in Jackson. Aibileen Clark takes care of white children and helps raise them and cleans around the house, while her best friend, Minny Jackson, is an outspoken black maid but has a quick short temper which gets her into trouble later on. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a white single independent woman, she earned a double-major

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.