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The Help

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The American Dream, something that every American has a chance at, the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity held to be available to everyone living in the U.S... But this was not the case in the 1960’s for African Americans. This chance was taken away from them because of racial prejudice. Slavery still did exist in a sense. Blacks had been discriminated against for generations and separated from whites by law. Segregation had oppressed blacks for so many years. Kathryn Stockett, the author of The Help, shows how racism and discrimination destroyed the chance for African Americans to achieve the American Dream.
In her book, The Help, Kathryn Stockett writes a realistic fiction story about the life and roles of black maids in the 1960’s in Jackson Mississippi. Skeeter Phelan, Minny Jackson and Aiblieen narrate the story. Skeeter is a 23-year-old educated white woman who is coming home from college. She lives at home on her family's cotton plantation. She is different from most women in her town mainly because of the maid that raised her, Constantine. “All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.” She slowly realizes she does not to be a part of the racism her town holds. She loves to write, so she soon devotes herself, at a high risk, to write a book featuring the real stories of the black women who work for the white families in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. The book will be published if she meets a deadline. So she soon breaks all the rules, slowly starts to lose all her friends and crosses dangerous lines to get across the truth of the poorly treated maids. Skeeter teams up with her friend Miss Leefolt’s maid Aibileen and her hardheaded friend Minny to record the stories of their maid life. Aiblileen

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