Character Analysis: The Help

‘The Help’ By Kathryn Stockett Jess Nicholson 12RE

‘The Help’, written by Kathryn Stockett, is a novel set in Mississippi, Jackson, in the 1960’s. It is a novel revealing the hard times black maids had while working in these southern homes. Skeeter, who grew up in Jackson has now returned after graduating from Ole Miss and is in search of writing jobs so she can pursue her dream career of becoming a journalist. Once she returns after seeing more of the world, she is horrified by how the black maids are being treated by these white families. She decides to write a novel revealing these deep secrets of Jackson and the black maids with the help of two new found friends Aibileen and Minnie, two black maids that work

It made me aware of how lucky we are to live in times where equality is a much higher priority in the world even though it can still be improved. An example of this brutality is when Hilly wants to pass a law that is, "A bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help.” They were so naïve they thought even using the same bathroom as ‘colored people’ would give them some sort of disease. It made me wonder whether they actually knew how they were treating the maids and other black people was wrong or whether they truly believed that they were below them and that was the way it was meant to be. Even though Hilly and some of the other ‘proper’ southern ladies really annoyed me throughout the novel due to their oblivion and rudeness towards the black people, I realized the high percentage of people today that would be like that if we had been brought up the same way in the same era. Who can we blame for these actions and the words of people in that time? Who started this unfair inequality between races? Even though it is obvious to us today that all races are equal, we were brought up in an equal environment and we may have thought differently if we were bought up in a different

Aibileen and the black maids weren’t used to this and found it hard to trust Skeeter at first which is shown when Aibileen says to Skeeter, “These is white rules. I don't know which ones you following and which ones you ain't.” But Skeeter just replies, “I’m tired of rules.” Aibileen begins to gradually trust Skeeter more and more and they become close friends. This taught me that it doesn’t matter what color you are or who your family is, anyone is able to work together and become friends as long as you have an open mind and don’t follow the stereotypes everyone