The Help Compare And Contrast

“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett is a personal memoir written in the perspective of 20 year old graduate Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan. This story begins with Skeeter finishing school and coming home to a house with her maid, Constantine Jefferson, no where to be found. She begins questioning her mother about her whereabouts, with no luck. She begins to understand the prejudice that comes with being black in the day and age of 1962, with hopes of getting these women to tell their sides of the story she sets out on recruiting Aibileen.

In the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett main character Skeeter Phelan works with the help, who work for her friends and associates all over town, in secret to compile a book of stories, benign and riddled with malice, about their employers. The author uses contrasting locations such as the plantation owned and inhabited by Skeeter and her family and Aibileen's house across the bridge in the colored part of town to show how truly different these two characters are, and that despite their differences in status, upbringing, and financial state, they still come together to bring to light the injustices suffered by maids, and the need for civil change.

Aibileen is a colored woman in The Help who is selfless by the way she takes care of Mae Mobley who is the daughter of Elizabeth leefolt, and how she teaches mae mobley to be self loving, Aibileen has changed since her son Treelore’s death and finds that she cannot easily accept the way colored people are treated and is now set on the right path to do the right thing for society by showing how colored people are treated. Even after losing everything Aibileen remains selfless, caring, and committed to doing the right thing.

Some people think that if they could only change one aspect of their lives, it would be perfect. They do not realize that anything that is changed could come with unintended consequences. “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs and “The Third Wish” by Joan Aiken both illustrate this theme. They demonstrate this by granting the main character three wishes, but with each wish that is granted, brings undesirable consequences. The main idea of this essay is to compare and contrast “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Third Wish.” Although the “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Third Wish” are both fantasies and have similar themes, they have different main characters, wishes, and resolutions.

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.

The most compelling character of this novel was Aibileen, an African-American maid working her days taking care of precious Mae Mobley Leefolt and the Leefolt’s house. She cooked and cleaned and earned little to no pay while doing so. Aibileen faced many conflicts throughout this book such as working through her son, Treelore’s death as well as raising a white two year old in a strict white woman’s house. She taught this girl to learn to love herself because her own mother was not. “Gave Mae Mobley one more hug, whisper, ‘You a smart girl. You a good girl.’” (Stockett 111) The biggest conflict Aibileen faced, however, was sitting down everyday and being interviewed by Skeeter Phelan who was a privileged white girl trying to make it as a writer. Skeeter asked Aibileen questions about what it is like to work as a maid, the challenges she faced daily, and trying to overcome the segregation gap in Jackson, Mississippi. As hard as it was, Aibileen answered all of these questions honestly in attempts to help Skeeter publish a book about working as a black woman during that time. Aibileen was developed well by the author because she showed the relationships she developed with white characters such as Skeeter and Mae Mobley. During that day and age, a black woman working together with a white woman was unheard of. Throughout The Help, Aibileen was going against the norm of society to try and find peace in this splintered town which made

Aibileen was being treated like as if she wasn’t a human, because she wasn’t allowed to use the same bathroom in the house that she cleans and takes care of every singe day, but instead was built her own separate bathroom. She was treated bad and was also paid badly. The money she was being paid is not even enough for her to put together a household and to pay bills. While all this was going on, she found a way to fight back by helping a young girl write a book that exposes how “The Helps” were being treated in the households they take care of.

Doubt is a drama/mystery film released December 25, 2008, John Patrick Shanley is the director of the film and the screenplay Doubt: A Parable. The setting of the story takes place in

In”Burning Mississippi” Martin Luther King Jr. is mentioned and there is a group of citizens protesting in Mississippi. These events show us that both of these stories took place between the 1960’s and 1970’s. I believe that the characters Aibileen from “The Help” and the detectives Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson from “Burning Mississippi” are similar because they all put in effort to try to change the world they are living in. Aibileen may be just a maid, but she tries her hardest to teach all the children she raises to be kind and against racism. She has also given more encouragement to the children than their actual biological parents.

Based off of Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel, The Help is a movie told from an African American’s point of view during the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. The three main characters include, Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan. Skeeter is a young writer who has recently returned from the University of Mississippi. She has been advised by the Elaine Stein, who is the head editor at Harper & Row, to write about a topic she is passionate about, that way she can continue her dream of becoming a serious writer. In addition, Skeeter accepts a writing job down at the Jackson Journal where she writes a housekeeping column. Ironically, she has no housekeeping experience as she grew up with in house help. In order to keep her job she goes to Aibileen, her friend Elizabeth Leefolt’s housekeeper. At this point in her life, Aibileen is just trying to get by. She writes out her prayers on a daily basis as a way to clear her mind since she is fairly reserved on the outside. On the contrary, Aibileen’s friend Minny is also a housekeeper, but she has a rather sharp tongue which doesn’t usually work in her favor. Consequently, she is trying to find a new employer, but is having trouble since there is a bit of discord between her and the most influential socialite in Jackson, Mississippi.

In today’s society the majority of the crimes are still being committed by people who have possessed a firearm that has been obtained illegally or without proper permits. That being said there has been a strong push for gun control because of the rise of shootings involving a large group of people such as the Columbine massacre, Virginia Tech shooting and latest Aurora movie theater shooting involving people who have purchased firearms legally. Gun control laws in the United States have been established for many years but to maintain a civilized society with limited crime stronger control laws need to be enforced in which will help reduce crime in our country. Establishing stronger gun control laws will educate

Aibileen and Mae Mobley share this relationship as well as Ms. Skeeter and Constantine because these black maids have been taking care of theses white children since they were born, which can make black maids be looked upon as a mother figure. Therefore, this trust between Ms. Skeeter and Constantine gave Ms. Skeeter the ability "to have someone to keep secrets with" (Stockett 76). This explains that the relationship between the two is too strong that is removes the ideology of African Americans being not trust worthy and cruel individuals. Also, this relationship usually leads to a heartbreak for both because for one, the maid be fired or went her own ways and the child will eventually grow up to become a future employer. However, even though the bond is strong between the child and maid, the parents would usually separate one from

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.

Aibileen is the most successful mother figure in the story. She lives on her sons legacy by becoming a writer therefore helping Skeeter’s book to become published, but she is also a true mother to a girl who isn't her daughter or even race. 

 Even though The Help by Kathryn Stockett is supposed to display the outrageous treatment of the black maids in this time, I believe that there wouldn't have been a real story without the concept of motherhood involved. Motherhood was the piece that held everything together in the book.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. Elizabeth Leefolt just had a daughter which she named Mae Mobley Leefolt. Throughout The Help, Miss Leefolt does not show any sort of compassion or love towards Mae Mobley. Aibileen, Miss Leefolt's maid, shows love to Mae Mobley or “Baby Girl” as Aibileen calls her. Aibileen even tries to boost Mae Mobley's self-esteem by telling her this famous quote “‘You is kind. You is smart. You is important’” Aibileen says that to Mae Mobley to make her feel happy showing her love. In The Help, Aibileen's account of the mental and physical abuse and neglect of Mae Mobley proves that the purest and most innocent individuals suffer the most abuse and neglect.