...The Help, Kathryn Stockett's debut novel, tells the story of black maids working in white Southern homes in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, and of Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a 22-year-old graduate from Ole Miss, who returns to her family's cotton plantation, Longleaf, to find that her beloved maid and nanny, Constantine, has left and no one will tell her why. Skeeter tries to behave as a proper Southern lady: She plays bridge with the young married women; edits the newsletter for the Junior League; and endures her mother's constant advice on how to find a man and start a family. However, Skeeter's real dream is to be a writer, but the only job she can find is with the Jackson Journal writing a housekeeping advice column called...
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...Have you ever wondered what it was like in the south during the 1960’s from a black woman’s point of view? Kathryn Stockett’s The Help gives people the chance to see the Civil Rights Movement from the eyes of the maids living in the Deep South in the early 1960’s. The Help was about the lives of three different women living in Mississippi during the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. The first woman, Aibileen, was a black maid who had to deal with the struggle of just losing her son due to the unequal treatment in the world as well as take care of a white family who did not respect her as an equal. Another maid, Minny, had the trouble of dealing with an abusive husband and all her children as well as finding a job where she would work well. The last woman in the book, Skeeter, was a white woman who had just come back to town and, when seeing how these maids were being treated along with remembering how much she loved her maid as a child, decided she wanted to do something special to help these maids get recognized for everything they did to help support these families. Therefore, the three put together a book with stories entirely written by black maids that Skeeter eventually was able to publish....
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...The Help is a 2009 novel by American author Kathryn Stockett. The story is about African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. The novel is told from the point of view of three narrators: Aibileen Clark, a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children, and who has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson, an African-American maid whose back-talk towards her employers results in her having to frequently change jobs, exacerbating her desperate need for work as well as her family's struggle with money; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a young white woman and recent college graduate who, after moving back home, discovers that a maid that helped raise her since childhood has abruptly disappeared and her attempts to find her have been unsuccessful. The stories of the three women intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help", with complex relations of power, money, emotion, and intimacy tying together the white & black families of Jackson. A USA Today article called it one of 2009's "summer sleeper hits".[1] An early review in The New York Times notes Stockett's "affection and intimacy buried beneath even the most seemingly impersonal household connections" and says the book is a "button-pushing, soon to be wildly popular novel".[2] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said of the book, "This heartbreaking story is a stunning debut from a gifted talent".[3] The...
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...Race and Racism Race and Racism Tate Taylor’s film The Help (2011) is a drama genre that shows the audience what it’s like to live during the times of race and racism. The film is told from the point of view Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan Allison Janney, who plays the daughter of Charlotte Phelan who has hired her nanny and maid Constantine. Skeeter does not like the unkind words about her friends calling the maid the “help” so she is inspire to write about the experiences of the housekeepers. This film shows Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan “ Hypocrisy and integrity are the larger race-driven which is the major theme. (Goodykoontz &Jacobs, 2014,Chp. 4.3 , para.21). The movie The Help shows racism manifests in the lives of the black maids in a number of ways: they are denied opportunities for educational or professional advancement, they perform repetitive work for white families, they must curtail their speech to prevent violence, and they must use separate facilities. Perhaps most damaging of all, black people are constantly exposed to social messages telling them that they are dirty, lazy, and in all respects less than white people. This film open up a lot of attention when it was written and film. I caused shame to Hilly for being so mean and evil to the “help”. Hilly represented an Adolph Hilter in his days to the Jewish people without having them put to death. Hilly made sure that if something was not her way she had them fired and told other maids not to hire the maids...
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...The Help, a recent 2011 drama film is the adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel - The Help. The story expresses the story of black maids working for white homes in Jackson, Mississippi around the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this age before the American Civil Rights Movement, black women commonly held low wage employment such as cleaning, daycare, or maid service. A main protagonist, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a young recently college educated white woman looking to advance her journalistic abilities. She gladly accepts a local newspaper housekeeping advice column called “Miss Myrna” to progress her journalistic experience toward greater positions. As Skeeter knows little about housekeeping, she turns to her local friend’s maid, Aibileen another main protagonist critical to the true narrative. Skeeter is characterized as very progressive for her time period, she can see the injustice and segregation in the country, and around her town that creates a disgusting, racist, and saddening society. She views her new friend, Mrs. Aibileen and her friendly associates as a miraculous caring median to attempt a change in society for the better. Throughout our diverse readings we have dealt little with race relations in the community context of justice. The community itself however, has been a major fundamental principle of a successful and democratic system of justice. Platos – The Republic attempted to characterize and debate justice between scholarly individuals such...
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...they were charged with feeding, rearing and caring for their children. Theirs is an American story that is rarely told on any grand, meaningful scale—not one, at least, that defies stereotype and caricature. But recently, “The Help,” a film based on Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling book of the same name, became a cultural touchstone when two of its lead characters, both African-American maids in the then-staunchly segregated Mississippi, challenged viewers to walk their journey—to see, as lead protagonist, Abileen Clark, said, “what it felt like to be me.” To me, ‘The Help’ is this year’s most outstanding and socially relevant motion picture; Viola Davis’ quiet but powerful portrayal of Abileen made us all take notice of a historically invisible class of women and Abileen’s story, along with those of the other maids who rallied with her to tell it, remind us that when we speak, if only in a whisper, momentous things can happen. Of course, the movie, does not come without its controversy: while so many, myself included, questioned then embraced Stockett’s story and actresses Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer earned Academy Award nominations for their roles as the maids who conspired with a young white woman to canonize their life stories, others question why, 70 years after Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for her portrayal as the affable, sassy slave maid Mammy in Gone With the Wind, Hollywood ushered to the screen a movie feting the Jim Crow subjugation of black women. What is lost...
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...has dealt with her whole life. Minny is probably the sassiest women in Mississippi and her sharp tongue has lost her yet another job. When Skeeter decides to write a book about the women who are employed in white households, these women come into an unlikely alliance in order to cause the biggest scandal in Mississippi history. 2. Theme - Race: Kathryn Stockett's novel unflinchingly explores the worst of the false stereotypes about black people – that they are lazy, dirty, carry diseases, and are in general less intelligent and less valuable than whites. She shows how these fictions are woven into the fabric of everyday life in Jackson, from the laws to ordinary conversations, and how these beliefs get passed from generation to generation. It shows a deep mistrust of whites on the part of the black community, who have been betrayed by them again and again. It also shows how powerful and how dangerous it can be to challenge the stereotypes and dissolve the lines that are meant to separate people from each other on the basis of skin color. "A bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help. I've even notified the surgeon general of Mississippi to see if he'll endorse the idea. I'll pass." 3. Tone: The tone of the novel is honest, compassionate, and humorous. “Treelore even start writing his own book, bout being a colored man living and working in Mississippi.” 4. Literary Elements: Symbolism: You can hardly find a page in...
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...human beings everyday life. We all have an unexplainable innate desire for companionship and friendship. These relationships help us get through many obstacles we can face and really make great influences. Each friendship we develop throughout our life has a unique but distinct love; the love that exists empowers the extents and the actions of each person apart of the relationship. A quote by the Grecian poet Homer that says, “The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.” explains this but how difficult it may be for us to form one’s that motivate us to perform some of the greatest deeds. Throughout The Help by Kathryn Stockett friendships and other special relationships are evident. They play an important role in the main subject of the novel and appear all throughout. They appear in this novel to display how powerful and necessary friendships are. This theme is also evident in many artifacts of popular culture; one for example is the hit song “Umbrella” by pop star Rihanna. This song was created to express her loyalty to her friends and guarantee their protection no matter the circumstance. In both The Help and “Umbrella” the use of the theme of friendship was used to communicate the immense love and loyalty that exists within friendships and express the true power both this love and loyalty holds. In The Help relationships constantly appear like the one that exists between Aibileen and Skeeter, Minny and Aibileen, and Johnny and Celia...
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...Name Professor’s Name Course Date Analysis of Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan in ‘The Help” (2011) This paper is set to take a detailed look at Skeeter in the film known as ‘The Help’. In the movie Skeeter is presented as a 22 year old white lady who has recently graduated from Ole Miss College. In addition, she is a fortunate daughter of a large scale cotton farmer at Jackson in Mississippi. Her nickname, Skeeter is given to her by her older brother due to size at birth. He thought she took after a skeeter. Upon her return from school, she realizes a degree of modifications based on the issue of racism. To be precise, she has a changed perception on the relationship between the members of the white households and afro American maids. She wonders why her society adopts a double standard notion at looking at individuals. For instance, she is surprised at the fact that the whites would not let their maids use the same lavatories as them, yet entrusting them (black maids) with the care of their children. Her attitude is heavily attributed to the absence of her favorite maid. She feels it was unfair for Constantine to leave without informing her. As a result, she suspects that something awful must have compelled her to part ways with her family. She later realizes that Constantine had been relieved off her duties upon her act of reuniting with her daughter, Lullabelle Bates. Another change worth noting in Skeeter revolves around the nexus between education...
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...Pashtuns in Afghanistan. If one is a Hazara, they are looked down upon by other Afghans. Before remembering the story, Amir ruminates: “...but it’s wrong, what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out,” (Hosseini 1). Hosseini captivates the reader by using personification before letting Amir tell his life story. This specific use of personification also foreshadows what comes in the story that Amir tells, specifically Amir’s own regrets of his past and the events that still haunt him. Using personification to intrigue a reader does an effective job of telling a story in a gripping method. Authors apply a sense of innocence to characters in a story when using similes. In Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, Aibileen Clark is a black maid in Mississippi during the 1960s. Aibileen works for the Leefolts, a white, wealthy family, who have a two year old girl named Mae Mobley. Mae Mobley’s parents, especially her mother, tend to pay no attention to her at all and see her as a bother. Due to her mother’s neglect, Mae Mobley is often taken care of by Aibileen, so Mae Mobley tends to favor Aibileen over her mother. One day when Aibileen is outside eating lunch on her break, Mae Mobley comes outside to Aibileen. Aibileen ponders: “She like one of them baby chickens that got confused and follow the ducks around instead,” (Stockett 106). Stockett uses a simile in order to compare Mae Mobley’s innocence to a baby chicken’s, who may follow around...
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...Americans ask when they meet someone new is, ‘what do you do?’’, and as such, she argues that in the US, work wholly ‘determines our status and shapes our social interactions’ (2000. The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work. Page 12) . In order to truly explore the representation of work in America, as it is a vast topic with an array of different experiences, there are many different areas to look at, which this essay will reflect. Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help, turned movie, depicts the racial tensions in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Era, and highlights the lives of African-American maids working in white households. Providing a vastly contrasting view of...
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...did a movie like Cry Freedom, featuring Denzel Washington as the slain anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, need to have a crusading white journalist played by Kevin Kline as its hero? Answer: It didn’t.) More recently, I was shocked that art-house audiences could have fallen for the finger-pointing sanctimony of Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies (1996) — a movie that basically pulled the same ploy as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), springing a (saintly) black visitor on a racially insensitive household in order to get viewers to shed a tear of sympathy and, at the same time, to flex a muscle of moral superiority. It’s no surprise, really, that The Help, the adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel that opened big out of the starting gate, has, in some quarters, been socked with that kind of criticism. On paper, at least, The Help sounds exactly like the kind of well-meaning but backward, “progressive” yet pious movie that Hollywood, by now, should perhaps have outgrown. It’s set in the early civil...
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...Racism and Women in society in the House on Mango Street and The Help Acceptance, typically the idea of fitting into a certain group of people. Many people want acceptance from others, it’s what drives us to do the things that we do. On multiple occasions we find that some of our actions that we engage in are wrong or against our self-morals, but we do them anyways to fit in with the crowd. Most people become followers and forget their own morals, instead of thinking from their own perspective, they think in a way that will make them accepted by others. But not all people are like that, fortunately, people such as Skeeter in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, faces peer pressure everyday about getting married or how she should treat certain...
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