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The Help

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Citation: “What makes you think colored people need your help? Why you even care about this? You white.” (Page 191)
Definitions:
Colored: Belonging wholly or in part to a race other than the white, especially to the black race; influenced or biased; specious; deceptive.
Help: To save; rescue; to make easier or less difficult; to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need.
Care: Serious attention; a cause or object of concern; grief; a state of mind in which one is troubled.
White: Pale, as from fear or other strong emotion; light or comparatively light in color; morally pure; innocent.

Literal Connections: “But the guest bathroom’s where the help goes,” (Page 9)
“But I can’t help but think …show more content…

“Is this really happening? Is a white woman/ beating up a white man to save me?” (Page 363) – This is very significant in a sense that Minny realizes that Celia Foote is not just any stereotypical white lady. Celia is tough mentally and a very caring woman who has proven that she will do anything for Minny. Celia has broken the line between whites and blacks that racism has formed.

“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.

Key Ideas/ Motifs:
The motif of “otherness” grows more clearly when scrutinizing various citations from the novel. Racism is a form of otherness that is grounded in the belief that one race is superior to another race. This belief leads to a clear “us vs. them” mentality in which African Americans were considered to be low class, if they were even included in the society at all. The novel is set to be at a time when racism was simply considered as a normal thing in society. Racism has formed lines that separate individuals from each other on the basis of skin color, and therefore has formed uprisings or mistrusts with one another in the novel. This form of otherness forms typical stereotypes in which African Americans can be lousy and dirty. People start to believe this and

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