Comparing Characters in The Help and Macbeth

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Over the course of the Grade 10 year, I had the wonderful opportunity to read a few texts, including plays, poems and books. These readings included two very interesting novels/plays, “The Help” and “Macbeth”, that each had different plots, but many similar characters. Within the novel “The Help” there was Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter, Hilly Holbrook and various other characters. From Macbeth the characters most significant to the plot and journey were Banquo, Macbeth himself, Macduff and Lady Macbeth . Each and every single one of these characters had very long and eventful journeys that were lived within the texts, but the two journeys that stood out most from both of these books, and that seemed to be the most relevant to one another were those of Mrs. Hilly Holbrook, and Lady Macbeth. These two powerful women played what I thought to be very significant roles in their respective worlds of drama, being so encompassed in their own worlds of mischief, that they forgot the bigger picture and almost never realized who they were wronging.

The journey Hilly Holbrook took throughout “The Help” was quite dull, yet eventful. From “Bridge Club” gatherings at Ms. Leefolts house, to banquets and dinners, Mrs. Holbrook seemed to always be out and about, trying to make the already difficult lives of coloured people far more difficult than they already were. From the start of the book, the reader got the immediate sense that Hilly was a racist, mainly because she stated on the 8th page of the book that she believed, and I quote, that “they (Black People) carry different kinds of diseases than we (White People) do.” (The Help, Page 8). She believed that by passing a law that would make it mandatory for colored people to have separate bath...

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...cognized what she was doing was wrong, and that her actions were not only effecting her, but those surrounding her as well as the victims of her sins and those who surround them. Evidence for this is clearly shown when we get the sad news in Act 5 Scene 5 that Lady Macbeth had committed suicide. She could not live with herself knowing what she had done and therefore ended her life under her own will. In Mrs. Holbrook’s case, from start to finish she never once understood that what she was doing was a bad example on her family, and a horrible influence on those surrounding her. She never realized that she was hurting other people, and even if she had she never stopped doing what she was doing. At no point throughout the book do we see Hilly treat someone of a different race, or anyone of her race for that matter, as someone who is on the same “level” as her.

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