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Ms. Hilly's Character Analysis

883 Words4 Pages

It is commonplace to say that individuals are defined by the friends they have. The relationships between the friends Ms. Hilly and Ms. Leefolt, and Ms. Hilly and Ms. Skeeter caused Ms. Leefolt to succumb to Ms. Hilly’s control and Ms. Skeeter to rebel and become independent from her friends. Throughout the novel, the author is telling the reader to love your friends, but that blind devotion towards anyone is dangerous.
The relationship between Ms. Hilly and Ms. Leefolt caused Ms. Leefolt to abandon her own best interest and follow Ms. Hilly’s lead devotedly. The first suggestion of this was the construction of the bathroom for Miss Aibileen. Not having much money, she knew it would be hard on the family. Ordinarily, she would not have spent …show more content…

Hilly and Ms. Skeeter is tentative and brings Ms. Skeeter to realize her true values and become a better person. The first time Ms. Skeeter is shown to rebel against Ms. Hilly is when she openly disagrees with her in front of the bridge club. Ms. Hilly immediately threatens her and Ms. Skeeter replies asking, “You’d kick me out? For disagreeing with you?” (10). Calling her out shows that she is not blind to Ms. Hilly’s racist tendencies. This also leads Ms. Skeeter to feel outcast from the group, being the only one to see something wrong in making a new bathroom just to alienate “the help”. This feeling of alienation led her to think for herself and create her own opinions. Once that happened, her thoughts and opinions became more concrete and she became more confident in them. Throughout the book, Ms. Hilly tries to get Ms. Skeeter to print her bathroom guide in the paper until Ms. Skeeter tells her “I will not print that initiative” (331). This is a major turning point in the book. Before, she had always just blown Ms. Hilly of saying she was too busy, but here, she stands up for her beliefs and refuses. This is the point when Ms. Skeeter completely diverges from Ms. Hilly’s influence and asserts her opinion. She then goes on and writes Ms. Hilly’s initiative. This could have been seen as conforming until she makes Ms. Hilly the joke of the town. Throughout the book, Ms. Skeeter refuses to breach her morals and as a result, the clique shuts her out. This gives her an outside perspective and allows her to see where society is faulty. She realizes that Ms. Hilly isn’t accepting of her and she becomes aware that this dismissal made her free in the

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Summary: Aibileen is becoming more confident and vocal about her opinions on race, especially after a member of the NAACP is killed by someone who is presumed to be KKK. Hilly also confronts Skeeter about a booklet about the Jim Crow laws that she had seen Skeeter reading because she says it would be bad for her husband’s image as he is running for the state senate. Hilly’s maid, Yule May, also agrees to be interviewed by Skeeter. Personal Connection: Most of this chapter is about things changing, whether it is relations between blacks and whites or a new tension between Hilly and Skeeter. I feel like this time in my life involves a lot of changes.

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She tells Skeeter that people don't actually tell her the truth, and she says that people are afraid of her and will never like Skeeter. “They hate you.” Skeeter replies, “You don’t have any idea what the other woman have told me”(Stockett 305). Gretchen says that all these maids show fear and hate toward Skeeter. Although Skeeter is white, she actually cares a lot about

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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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Her arrogance is displayed early on when she threatens Skeeter’s position at the League after Skeeter questions her bathroom initiative, “I don’t think you ought to be joking around about the colored situation. Not if you want to stay on as editor of the League, Skeeter Phelan” (10). Hilly’s threat towards Skeeter demonstrates her desperation to remain in power and

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Unfortunately, even though Ms. Hilly’s help worked hard and did as they were told, she still did not give them the light of day. To put it simply, Ms. Hilly did not see colored people as equals. For example, “’All these houses they’re building without maid’s quarters? It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do...

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(12.82). Skeeter is tired of the laws and social norms that force white and black people to be separate. Skeeter knows the risks of writing the book and she ultimately leaves her white friends and family in the south to pursue bringing the unheard stories of the maids in

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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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Skeeter is seen to develop in two different ways: a young woman who doesn 't have marriage as a first priority anymore and a woman who later sees an injustice to the black help. Skeeter is a white socialite who just graduated from college with a degree in writing. She came back to Jackson Mississippi with the idea of starting to write for book publishing companies but arrives home only for her mother to question her about marriage. Upon the many

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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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Explain the main conflict in your novel. One of the types of conflicts is man vs. self. The three main characters each experience this conflict. Skeeter goes through it because she has to decide; Do I go against everything that people have taught me or do I step up and write something that could change how people feel. Aibileen and Minny go through it when they have to decide if they should help with the book or not; If they help they could land in jail or they can finally speak how they have felt for so

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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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1025 Words | 5 Pages

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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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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