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Minny In Kathryn Stockett's The Help

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In The Help by Kathryn Stockett, two of the main characters, Minny Jackson and Miss Celia Foote, each undergo a different epiphany that changes their thoughts about another person. Minny realizes that Skeeter’s book is significant to her life; Miss Celia Foote realizes that being friends with the evil Hilly is not what she wants. Minny, a black maid in Mississippi, has an epiphany that revolves around the importance of Skeeter’s book, which is about black maids’ everyday lives, plays in her life. Earlier in The Help, Minny wants nothing to do with Skeeter’s book. Minny makes her position in the book obvious when she states that there is “no way I’m gonna do something crazy as that [helping write the book]” (Stockett 129). When Minny first …show more content…

Earlier in The Help, Miss Celia tries very hard to become friends with the ladies in Jackson, especially Miss Hilly and Miss Hilly’s friends. She does this because she is very lonely in her mansion and thinks she will be happy being friends with them. She calls Miss Hilly and Miss Hilly’s friends once every day about getting together to play bridge, which she does not even know how to play, and asks to be in their housewives’ club. Neither Hilly nor Miss Hilly’s friends ever call Miss Celia back, and they tell her that she cannot join their club, even though they have a couple spots open. In a conversation between Miss Celia and Minny that took place a few days after the banquet, Miss Celia has a realization that she does not want to be friends with Hilly. After Celia rips and throws up on Miss Hilly’s dress at the banquet, Celia said that Miss Hilly “looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was trash on the side of the road” (Stockett 336). Miss Celia once stated that when she was in Sugar Ditch, a very poor part of Mississippi, she was seen as nothing. Even though she left this poor part of Mississippi, she still feels like she is nothing because people often still think of her as the girl with no class from Sugar Ditch. So, when Miss Hilly looked at her in that way, she was reminded of how she felt in Sugar

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In the book The Help, Stockett uses pathos to show people’s emotions and their different feelings throughout the book. Skeeter’s interviews cause meekness and fear in the maids because if they get caught, their punishment will end up much worse because of the color of their skin. As shown in the book fear shows pathos as well as anger, sadness, and love. In the book, the maids give interviews for Skeeter because Skeeter believes that she can put together these stories from the maids and help change some of the segregation laws. Gretchen, a maid who shows ruthlessness towards Skeeter, also chooses to show confrontation when she confronts and berates Skeeter and Aibileen.

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This incident shows the reader that she wants to be taken seriously by her colleagues. It also displays that Hilly deeply treasures her reputation because of her reaction towards the situation. On the other hand, Aunt Alexandra has also shown the reader signs that she values her family’s reputation. In chapter 23 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Aunt Alexandra did not allow Scout to play with Walter Cunningham because of his poor background. She said, “Because-he-is-trash, that’s why you can’t play with him.

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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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Hilly was so excited to get the ring, but once she learned it was garnet, lost interest and never wore it again. This shows her egotistical tendencies through her expectations of the ring. As soon as it was not what she expected it to be, she tried to sell it and turn a profit, but was forced to keep it. This is reflected in the way she treats the people around her. Specifically, she treats Skeeter and Celia this way.

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Her maid, Minny, describes her as a risqué and different woman. She claims, “She might be built like Marilyn…her yellow hairdo… her green glue-on eyelashes…her tacky pink pant suit” (Stockett 57). All of the other housewives in town felt threatened and appalled by Celia, because of the way that she dressed and acted around men, and as a result, she had few friends besides Minny. Nevertheless, little did they know that she aimed to become more of a “normal” woman as she wanted to learn how to cook and run the household.

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Hilly was also very degrading towards others, and manipulative. “‘Like I’d even consider beating my friend Yule May Crookle out a her job. Miss Hilly think everbody just as two-faced as she is (Stockett 398).’” According to this quote, it is clear to see that Ms. Hilly does not have a good reputation in the black community. In the novel, Ms. Hilly is shown to be cruel to those who oppose her.

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By an anonymous writer later revealed as Skeeter also known as Eugenia Phelan. Skeeter, a white woman, returns to her hometown (Mississippi) to discover that her motherly nanny Constantine has left but no one tells what happened. Soon Skeeter realizes the injustice her society practices and decides to write a book where voices of black will be raised. She approaches Aibileen for sharing her narrative to which Aibileen responds positively and also let’s Minny in their secret. Minny, Aibileen’s friend, another black help, reveals a secret about Miss Hilly that ensures Miss Hilly’s silence after the publication of their writing project.

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The Help focuses on the story of a upper class writer that tries to find her social identity as well as others. With help from the maids of Jackson, Mississippi, they all overcome stereotypes and discrimination. Aibileen's story was the foundation idea for Skeeter because she had been through so much in her life that she decided to tell her story. The fact that she was black, and a woman the role of a maid for the upper class families were passed down from generations so she saw her fair share of being looked down upon. Being a part of the Black/African African race, there were certain things

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JOURNAL # 1 CHARACTER DEVELOPMET: SKEETER The novel that I read throughout this quarter was ' ' The Help ' ' by Kathryn Stocket. Character development took place in many different characters in different ways. The Character that is seen to develop the most throughout the novel is Miss Skeeter Pheelan.

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Furthermore, Minny becomes crucial to the writing of 'The Help'. It takes Minny to persuade the other maids to help Skeeter and Aibileen, for one, as her chapter in the book is critical to their safety. In the same way Aibileen overcame trepidation, Minny employs her courage to share her story with Skeeter. And Minny, though sceptical at first, comes to see the book as a positive change for the future. Selfless and courageous—Minny fights for what she believes in, even though she's well aware of the risks, and she protects and empowers her friends at the same

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The profound novel, The Help, can be interpreted as having many themes and subliminal messages about life, but to truly understand the meaning of them, the conflicting points must be recognized. Due to the fact that the setting of the novel is during segregation, the friction between blacks and whites is what creates the novel. Although it is easily recognizable that one of the main conflicts is segregation, there is a major conflict between two prominent characters, Hilly and Skeeter, wealthy white women. Some of the issues within this novel lye in location and the social aspects of living in a small southern town in that time. There are several underlying conflicts in The Help, but the main one that sets up all the themes are the conflicts

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By using different topics and putting her characters in uncomfortable situations and making them address the problems in their lives and confronting the risk of writing a book about the treatment of the help and also by using realistic situations and realistic personalities, Stockett chooses a interesting choice of have three different perspectives. Kathryn makes all of her characters choices have a cause and effect on other characters everyone in the book she is affect one way or another by the release of Skeeter book at the end of the

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Although a futile act it may seem, as she in the end cannot stop the cancerous ulcers she has from taking her life, her stubbornness about her death, allows her daughter, Skeeter, to have the courage to accept the job she was offered in New York City, along with a push from Aibileen and Minny. This is the second least important element, as although there are more things that have been kept or altered between the two forms, it wraps up Skeeter’s part in the book, putting it on the bottom of the list. The second least important element in this book to be kept or change is How Minny left Leroy. In both forms of “The Help”, Minny Jackson ends up leaving her husband, Leroy, with her kids, but why and how she leaves him changes with the media. In the book Minny tells the readers that while she is pregnant Leroy does not beat her

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A young college graduate, Skeeter, returns home to be with her ailing mother, and in her ambition to succeed as a writer, turns to the black maids she knows. Skeeter is determined to collect their oral histories and write about a culture that values social facade and ignores the human dignity of many members of the community. Two maids, Aibileen and Minny, agree to share their stories, stories of struggle and daily humiliation, of hard work and low pay, of fear for themselves. It is a time of change, when

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