Preview

Female Advants Depicted In Kathryn Stockett's The Help

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1140 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Female Advants Depicted In Kathryn Stockett's The Help
The novel The Help is a 2009 novel by American author Kathryn Stockett. The story is about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississipi, during the early 1960s. The Mississipi in the early 1960s is still where maids were treated unequally in many families. The female protagonist, a 22-year-old white girl named Skeeter graduates from university, who dreams to be a good writer after receiving outstanding and inspiring education. However, in the steady belief of her conservative mother, lies the essential and ultimate asylum for women, which is marriage. Skeeter is brought up by a black maid, also her best friend, who gives a French leave to Skeeter as she comes home. In the family of Skeeter’s friends, …show more content…
As the sight of unfair treatments to the black maids came into her eyes, she determines to carry out a plan, writing a book to do with all stuffs of sufferings and miseries the black had undergone via interviewing all by herself. Such is a non-violent but powerful act to help the black strive for their own rights, which lead to a real success, making this book a hit, also named The Help. And the things about slavery mindset is difficult and miscellaneous to describe. Thus, I divide the mindset into four parts, illustrating and complementing the slavery …show more content…
This social milieu establishes certain rules for men and women. White women, like Elizabeth and Hily are expected not to work, neither in nor out of their homes who are simply tasked with being involved in social events and supervising “the help” while black maids are expected to take the work, caring for their children and cooking their meals. Then came the complicated employee-employer relationships that the work maids take pride in, such as cooking or cleaning wasn’t valued in that society, who were then not being paid well, protected from abuse, treated with respect and so on. Let’s take one quotation, “You see her in the Jitney 14 grocery, you never think she go leave her baby crying in her crib like that. But the help always know,” in which Aibileen makes it clear that Elizabeth is a neglectful, abusive parent. But because of her status, Elizabeth can 't be viewed as such. Her status allows her to abuse and neglect her daughter with impunity, and prevents her from getting help for her problem. That’s in a family, what a mother did to a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hooks Chapter 7 Summary

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages

    These women who work as maids and nannies are still treated horribly by the more privileged women who have reached a power similar to that of men in their own class. Not only are they treated poorly but they are discriminated against because of the power position they hold. Just like in the interview with Elvira Areola, she fists told by the family that she could not quit because she was like family and quickly after she was told that she was only a maid. Not only that, but the employers were trying to prevent her from quitting by making her do something they knew she could not do to keep her with…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Education and learning have been always important for society because is thanks to that how we act and interact with other people. And “The Help” is a novel of education, meaning that the main characters undergo a series of gripping adventures that open their eyes to new truths and their lives to new opportunities. In the process, they act as educators, using storytelling, story writing, and devious pranks to effect positive change in their community. The characters that demonstrate it best during the story are Aiblileen with Mae Mobley and Skeeter with Constantine.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us (p. 530).” Descriptions of historical events of the early activities of the civil rights movement are sprinkled throughout the novel, as are relations between the maids and their white employers. The novel is filled with details from the early-1960s culture in the United States like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous march on Washington…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the important characters that help demonstrate the intensity of gender inequality was Nanny (Janie’s Grandmother). Nanny was mistreated by men in her life, she grew up a slave and gave birth from getting raped by her white master. In the beginning of the novel it appears that Nanny really does want the best life for Janie, but as time goes on Nanny shows her true colors as she really has distrust for the world and where Janie ends up. She is very protective towards her and doesn’t want her to end up with some hoodlin. From the way Nanny was treated growing up, she was taught that she didn’t have self worth and thus hates men, black men, and feminism. She says to Janie “Ah don’t want no trashy nigger... usin’ your body to wipe his foots…

    • 233 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “You should never be fearful about what you are doing when it’s right” (newseum.org), this was once said by civil rights activist, Rosa Parks. When a white passenger on a segregated city bus asked Parks to move, she refused to do so. She did what was righteous, not looking at the repercussions. A novel that explores this concept is The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, and set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s. This book is about three different women – Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan, Minny Jackson, and Aibileen Clark – coming together to write a book and start a movement that changes Jackson, and the way the people view division of race forever. Stockett mimics Parks’ views with the evolution of Skeeter’s character: one should always do what is right, no matter the consequences. This is demonstrated by depicting Skeeter’s journey during the book: she…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Skeeter Phelan

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Skeeter is being forced by her friends and family to find a man and then marry him. Early in the story, Miss Hilly tries to set Skeeter up with Stuart Whitworth. Hilly orders Skeeter, “Then make room… because this is pretty darn important” (71). Skeeter wants to follow her dreams and become a writer, but everyone close to Skeeter is trying to find her a man that she would spend the rest of her life with. Everyone wants to get Skeeter married as soon as possible since society expects her to get married after high school. Although Skeeter does not want to get married, she agrees to go on a blind date with Stuart, but the little hope she had left in finding a man was ruined, due to the way Stuart acted on their first date. This shows that Skeeter would rather spend time to herself, than on another man. Later in the story, when Skeeter left for University, her mother, Charlotte wanted Skeeter to come back with a man, like every other woman in town. Skeeter thinks, “I SKIPPED MY GRADUATION CEREMONY at Ole Miss. All my close friends had dropped out to get married and I didn't see the point in making Mama and Daddy drive three hours just to watch me walk across a stage, when what Mother really wanted was to watch me walk down the aisle” (80). This is significant because the readers learn that Charlotte wants Skeeter to get married and settle down. Her mother wants her to be like all the other white women in Jackson that went to study, but dropped out to get married. However, Skeeter is different than the others, she wants to become someone important before dedicating her life to a man. Skeeter breaks free from what the white society expects her to be by picking her career over a…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anger is a very powerful word that many people would refuse to accept. To some, anger may lead to disasters or troubles. Accordingly, no one could have ever thought that people may actually use this powerful energy of anger to reach the impossible. Kathryn Stockett is a normal American girl, who is known for her debut novel The Help. The Help is about African-American people working for white households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s. Stockett tries, in her novel, to tackle a subject that is uncomfortable for most Americans. The Help describes the relationship between African-American maids and the white people. This research paper will discuss how racism is the "mother of all sins" and how anger can be its cure.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She states that it “wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do” (Page 16) which is something she doesn’t want Janie to experience because she wanted Janie to be treated equally. Nanny demonstrated male dominance by stating that “Ah don’t know nothin’ but what Ah’m told tuh do, ‘cause Ah ain’t nothin’ but uh nigger and uh slave.” (Page 17) Nanny’s experience as a slave gives her a perspective of how “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see” (Page 14) which is a metaphor that compares a black woman to a mule because mules are mistreated as well as black women. Janie starts to realize that women are considered minorities to men after she marries her first husband, Logan Killicks, and he starts treating her different as time passes. Although the reason that Nanny married Janie to Logan was for her granddaughter to be treated equally and like a woman, Janie starts to notice that that is not the case with neither Logan nor her second husband, Joe. Only until Tea Cake comes along, does she actually feel equally treated because he states, “yuh can’t beat uh woman,” (Page 96) which is something new to…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eudora Welty A Worn Path

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Determination, strength, hope, endurance, perseverance, and love are only a few words to describe the readers feelings while reading this story. The author, Eudora Welty, screams-silently through her gently placed words in story, “A Worn Path”. The inspiring and encouraging phrases spoken to someone, “never give up”, “keep fighting”, “never back down”, are the unspoken feeling through the characters perseverance, determination, and love. The tone in the story is displayed through life of a black, negro-woman, who faces daily obstacles, during a time when black Americans were treated unjustly and unfairly. The traveled path she is traveling parallels the obstacles that African Americans experienced while on their journey for racial equality.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They made little money and could be fired without any reasoning. Throughout the book, it is mentioned that a specific white woman, Hilly Holbrook, lies about her maids stealing things from her.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    African Americans have used a variety of narrative forms to convey the history of inequality and lack of social justice in the United States during times of enslavement. These black Americans presented their experiences and feelings to write autobiographies, short stories, novels, poems, essays, and speeches in hopes to be emancipated. The many obstacles that African Americans had to endure in order to gain this equality in the United States are expressed through these works of literature. By examining the art of literature through multiple authors of both the Colonial and Antebellum periods, these fears, struggles, and hardships demonstrate the way in which the form of narratives advanced the equality and social justice of African Americans.…

    • 1175 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Elie Wiesel's The Help

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Help is a very inspiring story about racism, bravery, and change. The main character skeeter, struggles to become a writer for Elaine Stein publishing company, she must create an “original” idea to write about for her first article in the paper. Aibileen also narrates the story and she’s describing what she feels throughout the story. The Help is important for our society to read because it’s reminding us that racism was a problem that happened and it’s important to learn about it.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The idea of black women being members of the lowest level of social hierarchy begins with Nanny, Janie’s grandmother. As a former slave, Nanny symbolizes the conservative thought that the “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world”…

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This meant that in the context of the relationship between black and white women, black women could refuse employment and additional labor if they wanted. Glymph discusses how these changes in power dynamics changed the perception of work refusal from white woman’s perspective. What was once seen as insubordination was now a “menace” in the age of emancipation. If a slave woman managed to refuse additional labor prior to emancipation a slave mistress could still feel comforted in the fact that that woman was still her slave. However during emancipation a black woman could refuse labor she was not hired to do, as Glymph spends a lot time discussing. This ability to refuse their demands was seriously concerning for white women. And because of this they became very demystified with hiring free labor. For the first time white women found themselves doing household work that had been previously assigned to enslaved black women And in wanting to avoid the whole process because of humiliation many white women resorted to doing house work themselves rather than be dependent on a black woman’s availability. This was the case for Lizzie Roper who needed a wet nurse for her child that was to be born soon. When Roper realized she would have to worry about how much she would pay for the services of Mary Jones, a…

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    She calls upon the of a number of maids who works for her friends; Aibileen, Minny and Pascagoula in order to make her book a real like interpretation of the struggles they face on a daily bases. Jackson has a community that seems to be very racist and oblivious and close minded towards change and fait treatment towards citizens that reside there. The community seemingly split in two divided over an adequate racial line that has been passed down from generations to generations. Stern guidelines and regulations are put in place in order to separate the blacks and white. The writer gives us a glimpse of the Mississippian world back in the day and how maids were treated and the amount of racism and hatred that occurred in Jackson Mississippi. White Mississippians had been brought up and through social conditioning they had a mentality that prevented them to change their views and allow blacks to live the same luxury they had. Whites had more freedom blacks had, they allowed their communities to grow and flourish whereas blacks’ community became congested and overcrowded due to the restrictions preventing their community to grow “Jackson is just one white neighbourhood after the next” and “the coloured part of town be one big…

    • 1770 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays