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Moral Responsibility In Miss Hilly's The Help

473 Words2 Pages

Would you stand up for your morals, even when no one else supported them? In the book The Help, Miss Skeeter refuses to print Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative, and, in addition, she gets caught carrying a booklet of Jim Crow laws, with the intent to change them. Because of this, Miss Skeeter is therefore alienated from the other members of the Jackson Junior League through Miss Hilly’s influence, and from the rest of society. Consequently, the alienation of Miss Skeeter shows the corrupt moral values of the League members, the League elite, and her society as a whole, and how these values overcome long friendships. The reason why Miss Skeeter was alienated is key in knowing the values of the League members. Therefore, this quote shows that Miss Hilly does not approve of Miss Skeeter’s actions, …show more content…

Both of her closest friends show that she’s not wanted around them anymore. For example, Miss Leefolt doesn’t directly say it, but it is implied. Miss Hilly, however, says to Miss Skeeter's face that “‘You are sick,’ she hissed at me. ‘Do not speak to me, do not look at me. Do not say hello to my children’” (Stockett 406). Her exclusion, from her closest friends to people she doesn’t even know, has negative effects on Miss Skeeter. Society cast away Miss Skeeter, to the point where she had nothing left to keep her in Jackson. In conclusion, Miss Skeeter was excluded from the rest of her society because she refused to print the Home Help Sanitation Initiative and because she was carrying a booklet of Jim Crow laws. These two highly discriminatory reasons for alienating Miss Skeeter show that the society around her is highly discriminative. The extent of Miss Skeeter’s exclusion from the society around her shows the extent of the discrimination of her society. Even her closest friendships are broken as a result of their conflicting values. In the words of Judy Holliday, ‘Lovers have a right to betray you… friends

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How is Hiram from Mississippi Trial, 1955 and Skeeter from The Help similar with trying to help the Negro’s and how are they different? We’ll first begin by talking about Hiram and how he was raised so that we know this is what he believes, then we’ll talk about Skeeter and what she believes is right. Then we’ll talk about how Hiram and Skeeter are similar in which they believe that the Negro’s should be treated just like everyone else. Also we’ll talk about how Hiram and Skeeter in which they try to help and how one has to keep quiet about what they know. Then we’ll talk about how exactly do they both realize that what’s happening in Mississippi is wrong.

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“Let’s stop believing that our differences make us superior or inferior to one another”- Don Miguel Ruiz. The novel “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett is a controversial and heart wrenching story. It depicts the cruel brutality and inequality that many faced during the 1960’s. Stockett teaches the readers about how discrimination between races was inevitable and planted in everyday life through Aibileen’s life story, Hilly’s sense of superiority, and Celia’s innocent presence. Aibileen, the main protagonist of The Help, drives this book to such great lengths.

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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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She threatens Minny, Skeeter, and just about anyone who does not go along with her plans, or is associating with the black community For instance, when Yule May was denied of a raise to help her boys get into college from Ms. Hilly, she had no choice but to steal from Ms. Hilly. Consequently, Ms. Hilly found out, and sent Yule May to jail. It was because of Ms. Hilly’s lack of compassion for those with a different skin color than her that Yule May had to resort to

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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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Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help, is not just about overcoming racism, but also about overcoming the constant human power struggle. The novel also showed how people treated each others, regardless if they were the same race. Throughout the book, Skeeter is ignored and cut-off by her friends while Minny is abused by her own husband. These two events happened even though each was the same race. Even the woman Minny worked for was being ignored because of who she married.

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Although the black maids endure such indignity, none will share their experiences with Skeeter in fear of being discovered by the town’s whites.  Aibileen is among those who refuse, but one day at church the preacher exhorts the congregation to have courage and speak the truth. He states that, "Courage isn't just about being brave. Courage is daring to do what is right in spite of the weakness of our flesh. And God tells us, commands us, compels us, to love."

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Miranda Fricker dissects and examines the problems of testimonial justice and injustice, in her book, Epistemic Injustice, Power and the Ethics of Knowing. By using the characters of Marge Sherwood in The Talented Mr. Ripley and Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, Fricker draws in her audience and succinctly identifies two critical components to testimonial injustices. After examining her work, I feel her view of testimonial justice is able to be defended because people are not born to be discriminatory. Rather a person’s community and social interactions shape their development of testimonial justice, but there are ways to lessen a person’s testimonial injustice. Fricker’s argues that familiarity with people of different social identities

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The social groups focused on in this novel are white housewives, whose group consists of Skeeter, the privileged daughter of a farmer, who just returned from college, and “the help” or a group of maids who are of course of African American decent. The help is forced to obey their irrationally needy bosses, cooking for them, cleaning for them, and even raising their children, only to be treated inhumanely and unfairly by petty housewives. For example, one of the housewives, Hilly Holbrook, a seemingly conflicting character alone, was very suggestive of a bathroom act being enforced, which made it mandatory that every home have a separate bathroom for its help as a “safety precaution” because they could transmit diseases through their bodily functions. In situations like these, African Americans were very alienated, and it really displayed the gap in reality for the two groups. This in turn caused conflict between them, as African Americans were looked down at by whites and the whites were seen as threatening and wicked minded by African Americans.

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