The Help by Kathryn Stockett - Book Report/Review Example

THE HELP The Help (2009), written by Kathryn Stockett, is a novel based on the lives of African-American women who worked as house maids in the 60s and the discrimination and persecution which they faced. Based in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, the novel revolves around the Civil Rights Movement period in the United States of America. The novel helps in establishing the precincts of the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Segreagation Movement and helps in making us understand the actual cause and effects of the entire movement. The Civil Rights Movement in the USA during the 60s was a period marked by great injustice and discrimination towards the African American people living in the United States by the others (Caucasians). The ‘blacks’ as they were called by the ‘whites’ (non-African American People generally of European descent) suffered a great deal of ordeal in the form of segregated and third class living. They had no means to education esp. higher level studies; they were discriminated in jobs and were considered only fit for menial jobs like gardening, house-keeping, laboring in farms etc. In short, even after the end of slavery after the Civil War which was spearheaded by Abe Lincoln, the African American people lived a life of servitude and the slave mentality had not gone completely out of the mind of the white American. The African American community fought for their Civil Rights such that they could obtain enfranchisement and end segregation. The novel, The Help helps in stating this problem by exposing almost all of its facets and then providing a voice to the injustice and then coming up with a solution. The novel in its entirety covers the entire African American Civil Rights Movement in its own way and helps in providing the solution although it ends quite arbitrarily without depicting the ramifications of the act of defiance on the whole white community of Jackson, Mississipi. The novel revolves around the story of two African-American women, Aibileen and Minny who worked in the households of two privileged white families in Jackson, Mississippi during the 60s when racial tension and persecution was at its height. The novel recounts how both of these women suffered from the hands of the sassy white women mistresses. The antagonist in the novel is Hilly Holbrook who represents the archetype of the manipulative racist white American except that it was in a womanly way which is quite obvious since she is a woman. She was a proponent of separate toilets for the help (house maids) which were to be situated outside the house and was proposing a bill (Home Help Sanitation Initiative) legalizing the former and forbidding the usage of the house toilet by the help and considering it as an offence. Both Minny and Aibileen suffered directly or indirectly through the hands of Mrs. Holbrook. While Minny used to work as a house maid in Mrs. Holbrook’s house. She was fired from work by her for using the house toilet. She commits an act of vengeance by baking a pie with her feces in it for Mrs. Holbrook. But then in turn she had to suffer the wrath of Mrs. Holbrook when she spread her word defaming Minny as house maid and as a consequence of which none of the other ladies of Jackson would employ Minny. Aibileen suffered when she was fired by her employer, Mrs. Leefolt on Mrs. Holbrook’s instigation. The sufferings of Aibileen and Minny and the other African-American house maids mirrors what the entire African American community in the USA was facing during those hard times. The racial segregation was the paramount problem in those times esp. in the southern states like Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama etc. Enfranchisement and social and economical justice of the African American were their other significant demands. The ‘blacks’ had no rights to vote and their names were stricken off roll lists and they had poor job opportunities. The novel helps in eliciting the various methodologies that were adopted by the African-American people in their quest for civil rights. The defiance and courage exhibited by Aibileen in going ahead and giving the interview for ‘The Help’ which was being written by Skeeter Phelan, was a noble and a valorous attempt. It was essentially a non-violent effort of reproach which depicted the similar attempts of Dr. Martin Luther King during his call for civil disobedience in the Civil Rights Movement. Aibileen was brave enough to go ahead with the interview by recounting her experiences working as a house maid and how she found it befuddling and tragic that the girls whom she raised would turn to become like their own mothers and persecute and exploit them. She was in turn responsible for convincing others to give their interview to Skeeter Phelan esp. Minny Jackson. Minny, was the other protagonist in the novel. She is outspoken and sassy. Her story is marked by injustice and consequent payback. She was wrongly acquitted of using the indoor toilet by Mrs. Holbrook who was against the use of the house toilets by the house maids as she was of the opinion that black people carried different diseases. She was discharged from duty and out of malice Mrs. Holbrook spread the word amongst the affluent white community of Jackson, degrading and blacklisting Minny to be employed as a house maid. To avenge her unrighteous termination of employment, Minny baked a pie which had her feces as one of the ingredients. She gifted that pie to Mrs. Hollybrook under the guise of an apology and making up for her indecency and failure to comply with orders. This was an instance of outright impertinence and defiance which was symbolic of the extremist approach adopted by certain factions of the African-American community fighting for the Civil Rights for e.g. Malcolm X, Black Power Movement etc. The other instances in the book which were influenced or had a direct reference to the Civil Rights movement were the segregated public utilities like buses, churches etc. and the depiction of the murder of the Civil Rights activist, Medgar Evers and the aftermath riots that took place in various places in the US including Jackson, Mississippi. This shows that the events that transpired in the book were heavily influenced by real-life events and some were borrowed as it is. The importance of the novel can be understood from the fact that it helped in framing the problem of the Civil Rights Deprivation of the African-American people in a novel of 200+ odd pages. The Help provides an insight into the macabre of the problem that existed in the USA during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s. The various characters in the novel portray a slice of the racial problems in the little town of Jackson, Mississippi which were in full-fledged form in the other parts of the country. The Civil Rights movement in the USA was an important event in the history of the world. The event was characterized by ending racial tension in not just the United States but other parts of the world as well. It was after the passing of the various bills in the Congress like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that racial discrimination was uprooted completely from the United States and it emerged out as the global superpower. Other countries followed suit and soon almost all the countries of the world had exterminated racial discrimination from their policies, the last one being, South Africa which ended Apartheid in 1994. Another significant problem highlighted in the novel is that of a social disease which infests people as they grow old. In the novel, Aibileen states how she found it hard to comprehend that little girls raised by her would turn up just like their mothers and continue with the maltreatment and persecution. This attitude of the women showed a deeply ingrained social disorder in which people would forget their values and the sense of righteousness for a more wrongly favored social acceptance. The above stated problem was also shown when Mrs. Phelan asked Constantine to quit working for her under significant peer pressure from the other ladies in her social circle. This was indeed a very pathetic and sorry state of affairs which was quite rampant during those times in the United States and other parts of the world as well. The novel was helpful in evoking the emotional side of the racial discrimination as it was from the point of view of women of those times both black and white. Through the various characters in the novel, Kathryn Stockett helps in the portrayal of the problem of the racial discrimination in a very lucid and sentimental way. There lies a great deal of effort and courage in trying to rise up against the system – this is what is thematic of the novel along with the idea that change can foment from any level by anyone. The Help is an apt example of a specimen of literature which has been quite successful in presenting the non-fictional realities of the society into shades of fiction. The historically and culturally significant the Social Rights Movement of the 60s in the USA has been very well woven into a beautiful story of compassion, sacrifice, persecution, tragedy, unity, courage and peace. REFERENCES Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. Penguin Books, 2009. Print. Read More