Essay on The help

Submitted By gracieerae44
Words: 2642
Pages: 11
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The 2009 novel, the help by American writer Kathryn stockett comes across 3 brave women living in Jackson Mississippi around the 1940, begins to gather more African American maids in secret and begin to retell of working as a help. Mrs skeeter, a young reporter takes down the stories of the help and forms it into s novel after witnessing racist crimes towards the black women. Minny and Abilene are two brave and edgy maids willing to risk thie rlife by spilling the beans on everything they have gone through being in the help and helping skeeter complete the book. Although the stories are being told, it takes great effort for the ladies to continue to share about their life and grab a hold of other maids. Although being threatened, they still continue to write the books. The story is told in the 3 main character’s prospective which changes every chapter so you get a good glimpse of everyone’s life.
To kill a mocking bird takes place during the great depression. In Maycomb Alabama Tom Robinson, a black man has been accused of raping a young white woman. Even though many citizens disapprove, a white man named Atticus agrees to defend tom to the best of his abilities; despite many evidence of Tom being guilty the town convicts him and he is killed trying to escape from prison.
The reason I chose this book is because they both deal with racism back in the day. The key themes for both books would have to be about never giving up. The maids in the help never gave up even though they knew that many people knew it was them telling skeeter things about working in white households. They could have gotten into a lot of trouble, maybe even death but they still continued. Tom also had hope even though he was accused of doing something he didn’t. Instead of giving up he went to trial and fought against them. Another key theme is always standing up for what you think is right. In the both books white character’s took a risk and tried to help the African Americans when they saw what was wrong even though they were both persecuted by their own race. They still continued to do what was right. In To kill a mocking bird it was much harder for tom to get through it since he was practically fighting for his life but in The Help the maids were fighting to keep their names in hiding, yet alone going to jail.
The conflicts in both books are similar because in both books, blacks are being accused of doing crimes but they don’t have enough power of proof. In the hep, many maids are being accused of stealing from the homes they work in. There is no proof that they were innocent so they would get fired and put into jail for robbery. No one could get them out because there were no black lawyers then and no white lawyers were willing to help. In To kill a mocking bird, Tom was accused of raping a young girl. Even with evidence to prove him not guilty, he was still sentenced anyways. This shows that Black people didn’t have any power back then.
Kathryn stockett used minny, skeeter and Abilene as the narrators. She put everything in their prospective and changed it every chapter. It really helped you to see both ways of what was going on. It helps me see the problem in the prospective on different people and the different things going on in their heads.
Kathryn stockett’s idea of making three prospective- narration was a good idea because when she built suspense and you were dying to know what happened next she’d change the narration and move on to a different character so you would have to read two more prospective to find out what happened.
White ladies tools
“They get a shiny little set a tools they use, sharp as witches fingernails, tidy and laid out. Neat like picks on a dentist tray. In this example she uses objects and people to describe what she’s trig to say.
Poo Pie
“Sounds like a start of a very dirty joke, no? Actually these are the two biggest clues that help set it in Jackson”.
Abaline is a very affectionate person who goes
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