Examples Of Injustice In The Help

Jackson, Mississippi was full of injustices in the 1960s. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a young, white, and inspiring writer that wants to write a book exposing the maltreatment of the help by using their experiences. She receives assistance from Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson along with a few others to generate enough stories for the book. The Help was written by Kathryn Stockett and published in 2008. It was set in Jackson, Mississippi during the early civil rights movement. Slavery was supposed to be over, but the treatment of some of the help wasn’t far from it. This novel’s major theme was injustice, although there was an aspect of love and friendship as well. Stockett used a first person point of view in the book, with “Skeeter,” Aibileen …show more content…
Miss Hilly seems to be the ring leader in the gossip and ideas of racial segregation. Hilly is big on the maids having their own bathrooms, and didn’t want to use the guest bathroom at Leefolt’s house because that’s where the help goes. Aibileen stays calm and quiet because the bathroom issue isn’t new to her. Miss Hilly said, “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…” (1.63). The whites often mention blacks supposedly carry diseases that whites don’t. Later Miss Hilly mentions designing a Home Help Sanitation Initiative as “a disease-preventative measure” (1.66) that shows more of the injustice the help has to endure. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan took a small stand against the injustice by saying, “Maybe we ought to just build you a bathroom outside, Hilly” …show more content…
She was raised by a black woman, Constantine, whom she loved dearly. “Constantine’s the only woman I’ve ever had to look up to, to look her straight in the eye,” Skeeter said once (5.105). It’s easy to say this statement means Constantine was the only other woman as tall as her, but it also goes a little deeper saying she feels pride and equal in her presence. Skeeter remembers Constantine telling her, “Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?” (5.73). Since coming back from school, Skeeter is starting to notice the injustices and ugly people the help deals with, for instances Hilly telling everyone they have different diseases than whites do, and this sparks the notion of retrieving stories from the maids to form one book and expose the prejudice they deal with. She has convinced Aibileen to help, so now Aibileen is working on convincing