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Irony In Kathryn Stockett's The Help

1035 Words5 Pages

Kathryn Stockett American author Kathryn Stockett is best known for her first and only 2009 novel The Help, this popular and extremely controversial novel took five years to write. Her deep southern roots and the time period in which she was born played an important role in the evolution of the setting.(1) Kathryn Stockett debut novel The Help has been published in 42 different languages and has sold 10 million copies worldwide. This novel spent nearly 2 years on the New York Times best seller list. The popular movie of The Help, released in 2011, earned many actors of the movie numerous Screen Actors Guild Awards.(2)

Kathryn Stockett was born in 1969 in Jackson, Mississippi. She studied creative writing and English for her undergraduate …show more content…

Her novel is not only devoid of any deep insight into black women’s lives, it exists in a cultural vacuum.”(13) According to Sybil Steinberg from the Washington post, “Stockett doesn't sledgehammer her ironies though she skirts caricature with a “white trash” woman who was married into an old Jackson family. Even this character is portrayed with the compassion and humor that keeps the novel levitating above its serious theme.”(3) From the Browse book 2009 reader Awards, “The Help is a beautiful novel, and Kathryn Stockett is a natural storyteller with her fingers on the pulse of the best reads this year. Her characters, their stories, and the complex questions they raise will linger deep in your mind long after you’re done reading. Drop everything you’re doing and read this book!”(6) Although many reviews of the help have been good or fairly neutral some are not. According to Erin Aubrey Kaplan for MS Magazine, “The Help is buoyant in its most sober moments, occasionally insightful. Skeeter Phelan is a misfit a 24 year old college graduate growing uneasy with the social hierarchies of home. The two black women who risk their livelihoods to help collect the interviews she seeks, Aibileen and Minny are sympathetic if somewhat predictably drawn. The Help can’t decide it its a Modern Faulkner or pop lit with some racial lessons.”(5) For many people who don’t like to read or can’t there is a

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Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, attests to the hateful and cruel reality that is the life of African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi circa the 1960’s. Stockett writes many anecdotes surrounding the relationship between Constantine, an African American maid, and the child she cares for, Skeeter. Skeeter reflects upon a memory of Constantine and

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In the novel, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, there are many characters that can be identified as an antagonist throughout the story. However, Hilly Holbrook is the most significant of them all. With her attitude towards colored people, her controlling personality, and the methods she uses in order to have her way, it is obvious that Ms. Hilly is a definite villain of this novel. In the novel, many white families, including Ms. Hilly’s, had hired African American maids to help them around the house.

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The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s. Skeeter, a southern society girl, interviews the black women who have spent their lives being servants for wealthy white Southern families. There are various scenes throughout the film that show social stratification, racial inequalities, gender inequalities, and class inequalities. Massey’s Social Stratification Theory states that humans allocate people to different categories. These categories often lead to inequality which is implemented socially.

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