It is a well known fact that there are multitudinous people around us fighting for their rights and most importantly in a need to be treated as equally as the other. A rebellion for equality has seldom reached fruition. The oppressors and the oppressed may come together for a compromise but never have the former wholeheartedly embraced the latter. Hence, it is safe to say that as long as there exists a wide difference in the living quality and conditions of people, there will be a presence of a dominant class and a recessive one. Kathryn Stockett’s The Help puts forth the theme of racial discrimination and inequality faced by the black maids under their ‘superior’ white masters and it also shows the various distinctions among the white women
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Surprisingly, Kathryn Stockett also exposes the differences among the white women themselves. In the novel, Hilly Holbrook develops a feeling of hostility against Celia Foote because the latter had married Hilly’s former boyfriend. However, as the story progresses we realize that keeping her personal reasons apart Hilly and her friends despise Celia because of her differences in demeanor and etiquette when compared to them. Celia’s lack of knowledge regarding the largely unspoken rules of middle-class white conduct is due to the reason that she comes from a poor, “white trash” family but marries into a wealthy one. Since Celia is unaware of how white women are supposed to treat their maids, she treats her maid Minny with more respect than …show more content…
These differences pressurize the people into living a life that is considered to be ‘acceptable’ to the society. The most accurate example of this can be seen in Jane Austen’s novels, especially in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Mrs Bennet dreams of marrying off her daughters into a wealthy family to raise their own standards and assert superiority over the others. In the novel, women married primarily for status and wealth and there was a substantial amount of class snobbery associated with it. The social world depicted in the novel is highly stratified and laden with class struggle and pretension. Another example is from Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’. The final predicament of Pecola Breedlove in the novel predominantly arises from the oppression that she faces because of her skin colour. Fair skin and blue eyes are treated as the only definition of beauty. There is the character of a little boy in the novel named ‘Junior’ who derives great pleasure in terrorizing Pecola. This is an example of how racial discrimination has penetrated even into the young
Surprisingly, Kathryn Stockett also exposes the differences among the white women themselves. In the novel, Hilly Holbrook develops a feeling of hostility against Celia Foote because the latter had married Hilly’s former boyfriend. However, as the story progresses we realize that keeping her personal reasons apart Hilly and her friends despise Celia because of her differences in demeanor and etiquette when compared to them. Celia’s lack of knowledge regarding the largely unspoken rules of middle-class white conduct is due to the reason that she comes from a poor, “white trash” family but marries into a wealthy one. Since Celia is unaware of how white women are supposed to treat their maids, she treats her maid Minny with more respect than …show more content…
These differences pressurize the people into living a life that is considered to be ‘acceptable’ to the society. The most accurate example of this can be seen in Jane Austen’s novels, especially in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Mrs Bennet dreams of marrying off her daughters into a wealthy family to raise their own standards and assert superiority over the others. In the novel, women married primarily for status and wealth and there was a substantial amount of class snobbery associated with it. The social world depicted in the novel is highly stratified and laden with class struggle and pretension. Another example is from Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’. The final predicament of Pecola Breedlove in the novel predominantly arises from the oppression that she faces because of her skin colour. Fair skin and blue eyes are treated as the only definition of beauty. There is the character of a little boy in the novel named ‘Junior’ who derives great pleasure in terrorizing Pecola. This is an example of how racial discrimination has penetrated even into the young