Now, slavery has ended almost a century ago from 1960 and somehow continues in Jackson, Mississippi everyday. With the perspective of a colored maid, Aibileen, the reader is able to explore her and other maids’ obstacles that they face. She is known as the protagonist and apposed to her the antagonist is the white people in Jackson. Aibileen has raised 17 white babies in her life and has loved every single one as much or more than their actually parents. With the lost of her own boy by a terrible action of a white man, she believes her whole world went black that day. Aibileen explains, “A bitter seed was planted inside me. And I just didn’t feel so accepting anymore” (Stockett 3). After she lost her son, she was willing to forget about the risk and speak of her past experiences of being part of the help. She works from 8AM to 4PM, 6 days a week making only $1 or less an hour for the Leefolt family who has one daughter. The book expresses her thoughts in fear that she will get caught being interviewed by Skeeter. Aibileen begins to ask Skeeter, “What if- what if you don't like what I got to say? I mean, about white peoples” (Stockett 121). Aibileen lives her life in darkness and fear of white folks and constantly questions Skeeter about if it’s safe to continue the interview. In the film during the interview, lighting plays a crucial role in support of the book. The director emphasizes characterization in the novel through light and dark contrast because whenever Skeeter interviewed the maids, especially Aibileen, the lighting goes extremely dark as if the women were committing a crime. When the colored maids were doing their jobs, the lighting grew bright and happy. In comparison to when they were going against the law and speaking about their jobs, the lighting dimmed to dark and very…
