Racial discrimination was brought to the peak of popularity in mass media in the 1960's with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Southern United States was the front line of the battle for equal rights for not only black men, but also black women. The unification through the terrors of racism brought hope and a fighting chance to the cause. Kathryn Stockett uses the characterization of Minny Jackson through point-of-views of herself and other characters in her novel, The Help, to develop the conflicting ideas of the African American women ideology, Africana womanism. Africana womanism is a branch off of womanism which focuses more on racial discrimination rather than equality for women in a man's world. It was developed by Clenora Hudson-Weems in the 1980's to contrast some of the ideas of womanism. The connection between men and women of Africana descendants share a closer bond which makes feminism less important to black women (Aldridge and Young 205-17). Africana womanism looks more towards a future for all African Americans rather than a future for the women. The connection between Africana descendants however may not be strong enough when dealing with spousal abuse. Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan's point-of-view paints Minny as the strong and sensible maid with a distrusting mood toward white women and a strong connection with African American tradition. As Miss Skeeter interviews Minny for her book, Minny expresses her "furiousness at white people" and her love of food (Stockett 194). Minny's hate for white people relates to that of Africana womanism, but her love for food is the only love she truly has because of her home life. Cooking is normally passed down from generation to generation as a type of tradition.... ... middle of paper ... ...s not only between the help and the employers, but also the problems between the black and white communities. In the eyes of her friends, she is a strong woman who tends to have a bit of a temper, but her true fears bubble to the surface over time. The tight knit group of maids shows the true sense of unity that Africana womanism embodies in the black community. Kathryn Stockett is able to successfully embody an African American woman through her characterization and the ideology of Africana womanism in The Help. Works Cited Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. New York: Amy Einhorn, 2009. Print. Aldridge, Delores P., Carlene Young. "Africana Womanism: An Overview." Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies. Lexington Books, 2000: 205-217. The University of Missouri-Columbia. Web. 11 April 2014.
She was not aware of the hatred many had for her, especially Hilly, for marrying her ex boyfriend, hiring her ex maid (who also put her feces in a “special pie” she made for her), and wearing raunchy skin showing clothes that distracted the husbands of many, including her own. Minny attempted to teach Celia that it was not okay for her husband not knowing that she had not only a maid, but a black maid. In addition to that, she also taught her other various things, and they bonded during the movie. Similarly, Hiram had the same situation. He met Emmett Till, a chicago raised negro, who didn’t know that he had to treat the whites in a particular way in the south. In one section of the book, Hiram gave a very famished Emmett the rest of his lunch. R.C., a rambunctious 18 year old who Hiram had known since he was a child, awoke from his nap, was furious of what he did, and tortured and beat Emmett. Just from witnessing that, Hiram finally knew what his dad had always argued about with his grandpa. Celia also realized that Minny had been mistreated by the women of the high society. After some time, these two character knew the hateful and evil acts of many of the Southern people, and would not stand for it. They were the outsiders, the odd men (and women
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
Being her first published novel, I think author Kathryn Stockett did a terrific job at writing, “The Help.” This novel won awards from Goodreads, The Choice Awards, best fiction and was voted the New York Times number one bestseller. I like how this novel is based around the theme of prejudice, making it easier to understand because prejudice is a big thing in our history. “I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain’t a colour, disease ain’t the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming - and it comes in ever white child’s life - when they start to think that coloured folks ain’t as good as whites… I pray that wasn’t her moment, pray I still got time.” I also liked how the author, Kathryn Stockett, gave each character a southern accent, therefore the novel came across as more realistic. The ‘flow’ of the novel is easy to follow and isn’t
The Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
In the deep south of Jackson, Mississippi, cultural lines are ridged, as are the gender roles of white females and black females in relation to their male counterparts. In Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help,” these assertions are validated by Skeeter’s constant battle with her mother about marriage. Skeeter is a young woman that was raised in the south by her maid Constantine. Equip with a different set of values than her friends, Hilly and Elizabeth, Skeeter decides to attend college, make a name for herself through writing, and put marriage on hold, despite the opposition she faces. Celia Foote, an atypical white woman of the time period, defies the gender roles set for women; although she is yearning to conform to them. By juxtaposing Skeeter’s
In conclusion, the theme of race in Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help, is very evident and addresses its influence on society, social class, stereotypes, standard of living, violence and education. These characteristics were a major attribute to the everyday life of those living in the south during the Civil Rights Era. The novel is a well-written representation of these attributes and brought a sense of realization to these common issues that were occuring in the
Feminist theory is a term that embraces a wide variety of approaches to the questions of a women’s place and power in culture and society. Two of the important practices in feminist critique are raising awareness of the ways in which women are oppressed, demonized, or marginalized, and discovering motifs of female awakenings. The Help is a story about how black females “helped” white women become “progressive” in the 1960’s. In my opinion, “The Help” I must admit that it exposes some of our deepest racial, gender, and class wounds as individuals and social groups, and that the story behind the story is a call to respect our wounds and mutual wounding so that healing may have a chance to begin and bring social injustice to an end. The relationship between Blacks and whites in this novel generally take on the tone of a kindly, God-fearing Jesus Christ-loving Black person, placidly letting blacks and whites work out their awkwardness regarding race and injustice. Eventually both the black and white women realize how similar they are after all, and come to the conclusion that racism is an action of the individual person, a conclusion mutually exclusive of racism as an institutionalized system that stands to demonize and oppress people based on the color of their skin and the location of their ancestry.
“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett is a story that takes you through the ups and downs of living in Jackson, Mississippi in the 60’s. With the bravery of these 3 brave women they were able to write and release a book about being the help. The help. While there were small repercussions in the end, Jackson, Mississippi saw a change for the better after the book was released.
For this assignment, the movie “The Help” was chosen to review and analyze because it presents a story of fighting injustice through diverse ways. The three main characters of the movie are Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young white woman, Aibileen Clark, and Minny Jackson, two colored maids. Throughout the story, we follow these three women as they are brought together to record colored maids’ stories about their experiences working for the white families of Jackson. The movie explores the social inequalities such as racism and segregation between African Americans and whites during the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.
The Help chronicles a recent college graduate named Skeeter, who secretly writes a book exposing the treatment of black maids by white affluent women. The story takes place in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, during the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. The death of Medgar Evers triggers racial tension and gives the maids of Jackson the courage to retell their personal stories of injustice endured over the years. The movie depicts the frustration of the maids with their female employers and what their lives were like cleaning, cooking, and raising their bosses’ children. The Help shines a light on the racial and social injustice of maids during the era of Jim Crow Laws, illustrating how white women of a privileged society discriminated not only against black women, but also against their own race. The movie examines a very basic principle: the ethical treatment of other human beings.
I have recently readed the book called The Help by Kathryn Stockett. A few years ago it was made into a movie that was really famous and capture the attention of many. The main story is about a group of African American maids, that with the help of a unique fresh out of college journalist write a book about their experiences as maids for the upper middle class of Jackson Mississippi society in the 1960’s. The book deals with a lot of racism towards the maids portrayed by their employees. But above all this what I wanted to focus on is a theme that I found in the book that is complete opposites from the main themes that the book wants us to look at.
Throughout the novel The Help, which was set in the 1960s, there were many feuds between the maids and the white ladies that hired them because society looked down upon the maids due to their race. Also, there are many important characters in the novel that contribute to the book and how it is perceived. In the wise, optimistic novel The Help, Kathryn Stockett illustrates the complicated lives of the people on the opposite sides of the racial divide by portraying Hilly Holbrook as the villain. In the novel, she controls all the white women in Jackson, Mississippi by blackmailing and threatening maids, and enforcing the divide between the maids and the white ladies.
Women's liberation customarily the development related with the acquiring of rights for ladies all over, has regardless of its endeavors, been not able stay important to all ladies. Dark ladies particularly have truly endured and experienced connections, parenthood, and the general thought of womanhood much uniquely in contrast to that of different races of ladies in America. The beginning of womanism turned into an outlet for dark ladies to express their own battles and hardships reflecting sexist encounters as well as supremacist ones too. Womanism has created throughout the decades as a development not just particular to the issues dark ladies confront yet in addition required for the very survival and comprehension of ladies of shading in general. Womanism, not at all like woman's rights is a fundamental device for the strengthening of ladies of shading through its organizing of the issues these ladies face and techniques on the most proficient method to at last beat them. Much women's activist hypothesis has been worried about clarifying the position of white ladies in the public arena. Dark women's activist work has oftentimes been underestimated inside Women's investigations, and dark women's activists have tested existing
The economics within the African American society runs completely differently through the white society. For example, the African Americans thought that just fifteen dollars was amazing as it may cover gas for the car and food for a day, but whites would not think this way. Whites would have a negative attitude about this and believe that they needed more money for shopping and other activities. This was back in the time of The Civil Rights Movement where African Americans were though of as unequal to the white society. Throughout this book I believe that there is one white individual that really understands what poverty is like and how the African Americans truly feel. This person is Celia due to her rough past as she previously experienced a time of poverty. She really cares for her maid, Minny, and help her through obstacles in life. “Except for Gretchen, all ten women have asked that the money go toward Yule May’s boy’s education.” (P.g.307) As Yule May is a African American women, she continuously struggles with money and helping her children get through school. She does not want her children to have to give up school due to her economical hardships. The women are wanting to help her as they have come together and decided to give the raised money to Yule May. Yule May just wants the best for her children and to ensure that they have the opportunity of a better education than she received. “What I care about is, if in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing the silver.” (P.g.256) This is a quote said by Minny that really shows the poverty African Americans were in during the Civil Rights time period compared to the whites. It shows that Minny’s children would never steal the silver, but whites would suspect this as blacks could be so desperate for something to eat with during their home life. Whites had more money, attained