Allusions In The Help

The Help is a novel written in 2009 about African-American maids working in Southern homes in the 1960’s and a young white woman pursuing to write a book about the maid’s lives. Stockett was born in 1969 in Jackson, Mississippi. She worked in magazine publishing in New York before attempting to publish The Help, which was rejected by 60 different literary agents. Stockett’s personal background played a major part in her ability to tell this story so well. She grew up with African-American maids working in her household and grew up shortly after the decade in which this novel takes place. The society that she grew up in and her experience working in a magazine helped her to write from the personal viewpoint of African-American help and a woman striving to become a journalist in America during the 1960’s. In The Help, Stockett uses specific setting, point of view, and allusions to tell the incredible story of three young women of different ages, backgrounds, and race that join together in a work that readers will never forget.

The first major literary feature in this book that creates the story so well is the setting. The Help takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960’s. This was

There are many instances in this story where characters make allusions to people and events that were taking place during this time. One allusion that is used on numerous occasions throughout The Help is of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In one scene, Minny expresses her fear of the KKK, “That knock on the door, late at night. That there are white men out there hungry to hear about a colored person crossing whites, ready with they wooden bats, matchsticks. Any little thing'll do." The historical connections made in this novel are especially important to help the reader have a better understanding of what the characters were going through and what they were feeling by connecting the story to real-world