Character Analysis: The Help

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Times were changing the in the United States during the 1960s. President Eisenhower was leaving office while President Johnson was stepping in. “Civil Rights” became a common term, while names like “Martin Luther King Jr.” and “Rosa Parks” were impolite to talk about but everyone loved to chat about it behind closed doors. Everything was split; separate but equal was taken to the extremes. Segregated bathrooms, separate counters to eat at, blacks and whites couldn’t even attend the same school. Books that were once used by a white school couldn’t be moved and used by black students and vice versa. But that was before James Meredith, the revolutionary, came in the scene. In 2009, a book came out on the market called The Help. The author, …show more content…
The dialect in The Help is true to that of the South during the time period. Most of the African American maids in this book have a distinctive slang, which is expected because most black girls were only educated through the fourth grade. Most of their banter included “yes ma’am, no ma”am” and “yes sir, no sir” (Maslin C6). In this part of the book, Aibileen is having an everyday conversation with her employer when she says, “Oven a be off in a minute. Kids gone out back to play,” (Stockett 457). Most writers struggle to come up with a perfect “voice”. Ward states that Stockett not only perfected one but three distinctive voices in her first book. The protagonist voice, Aibileen Clark, is based off of a maid named Demetrie who worked for Stockett’s grandmother for many years. (Rich 2). In the book and in reality, The Help and Gone With the Wind are compared frequently. It’s no exception concerning dialect. Henneberger says The Help’s dialect drips with Gone With the Wind similarities (7). Ward hits the nail on the head when he says “Alternating between demure sweet talk and wizened straight talk…, Stockett evokes the none too subtle shadings of Southern society, circa 1962.” When Stockett was being interviewed, the interviewer had mentioned she had been accused of not giving the white characters as rich of a dialect as she did the black characters. Her response might

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