Book Analysis: The Help By Kathryn Stockett

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Recommended: The portrayal of women in literature

Jocelyn Bourgoin
9/1/17
Summer Reading Essay

Have you ever wondered what life was like for a maid in the 1960’s? Well, the book The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, gives the reader a somewhat fictional and interesting view on the lives of maids who work for white women. The book follows the points of view of three different women, Ms. Phelan, a white women, Minny and Aibileen who are both black. Many things are happening in the town of Mississippi that they live in, like how many people were building bathrooms for the blacks because they did not want to use the same one. Or how the blacks were being treated horribly. Ms. Phelan decides to write a book about what it’s like to for black maids to work for white women. She was inspired to …show more content…

Minny, Aibileen and the other maids are seen as unequal towards the rest of the community, or the whites. They are treated coarsely and like they are less of a person because they have different color skin. The maids were also not allowed to use the same bathroom as the rest of the people. “She's upset because the n**** uses the inside bathroom and so do we” (pg 7). At some parts in the book the women in the bridge club would talk about the maids in a mean way and make fun of them and talk bad about them. “I keep telling her, if that Minny can’t cook she needs to just go on and fire her”.....”Minny cooks fine.” say ole Miss Walter. “I’m just not so hungry like I used to be”. The book was set during the time with all the civil rights movements so this conflicts shows up a lot. “Yet I am neither thrilled or disappointed by the news that they might let a colored man into Ole Miss…..Roger Sticker, our local reporter, is nervous, smiling, talking fast. “President Kennedy has ordered the governor to step aside for James Meredith, I repeat, the President of the United---”. People of color were also being killed because they were who they were or for accidentally doing things. “ Did you hear about the colored boy this morning? One they beat with a tire iron for accidentally using white …show more content…

The book that was written did give light onto the whites on what live was like for people of color who were working as maids for white families. “Soon as she gone, I run out and tote the box inside and grab out a copy and I just stare….Be the prettiest book I ever seen.” This however did not exactly resolve the conflict. The conflict was not actually resolved until years later and even then it still wasn’t over. I don’t think there would have been a better way to resolve this conflict. I think it was a creative idea to write the book to share what it was like, but it did not quite help. The book The Help was written as a fictional story that showed the lives of three women, two who were colored and the other one who was not. However, even though it was fiction it gave us a realistic view on what it was like to live in the 60’s. This book was about a white women and colored maids coming together to write a book. It also shows that no matter what race, gender or who you are does not matter. We are all equal. There were many conflicts in this book, but the real tremendous one was people versus a

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