Compare And Contrast Hiram Hillburn And The Help

Improved Essays
How do two people have the courage to fight against civilization? Hiram Hillburn and Eugenia Phelan, also referred to as Skeeter, did what no other white person dared to do. Mississippi Trial 1955 by Christopher E. Crowe and The Help had quite a lot in common with the topic of racism. Although, Hiram Hillburn and Skeeter can relate in similar ways they always have many differences. This essay will consists of detail about two characters, Hiram and Skeeter, compare and contrast of those characters, and the purpose of their stories.
Hiram Hillburn is in for quite a shock as he returns to his childhood home in Greenwood Mississippi. There is a difficult choice for Hiram, between his father’s opinion on civil rights and his grandfather’s. His

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The story is about how it was to live in Mississippi during the 1950’s. The main character Hiram Hillburn lived with his grandparents, he was always a spoiled kid and grew up with what he wanted. He liked the spoiling and their big house. “Gramma and Grandpa lived in a big white two-story house... Their house looks like a smaller version of the White House in Washington, D.C., without so many pillars in front and not nearly so tall and wide” (Crowe, 2002, pp. 9-10).…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this section of “The Warmth of Other Suns”, a common theme was strength. Ida Mae, George, and Robert had to face challenges that made them stronger. What struck myself was the stories of Armington High, Henry Brown, Emmett Till and his Mother, and the Clark Family. The majority of these individuals had the strength to escape the South and deal with the harassment of the whites in the North.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the 1930’s there was a case of white people against black boys in the town of Paint Rock, AL (Ransdall).” This case was known as The Scottsboro Trials. A novel written by Harper Lee titled To Kill a Mockingbird has a similar plot in which a black man, or Negro, was accused of raping a white woman (Lee). Both of these stories have similarities and parallels that are interesting to indulge in. The social characteristics, stigmas, and opinions if superiority influence the behaviors and decisions of those involved in both trials.…

    • 1677 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help compare and contrast The Jim Crow Laws were statutes enacted by Southern states, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between African Americans and whites. To Kill a Mockingbird is a book by Harper Lee that follows the life of a young girl named Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Who lives in the segregated south and the obstacles she has to go through when her father Atticus Finch is chosen to represent an African American named Tom Robinson, who is convicted for rapeing a white woman. The Help, directed by Tate Taylor, is a movie that shows the obstacles African American maids have to go through in the segregated south, and how a young woman named Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan stood up against the crowd and decided to write about the work experiences of…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Juxtaposition In The Help

    • 1065 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Adapted from Kathryn Stocket’s novel of the same name, historic period drama film ‘The Help’ (2011) set within the infamously bigoted United States of America during the 1950’s and directed by Tate Taylor, presents the directorial perspective that the effects of racism within society can only be counteracted when someone with enough courage to do so, is able to accept that racial discrimination is an injustice. This particular stance on the issue of racism is constructed through use of juxtaposing the actions taken against racial discrimination by one of the main protagonists and her narrow minded and visibly racist peers, thus highlighting the courage required to take a stand for what is right. A generic convention, most prominent when communicating…

    • 1065 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tom Robinson Trial

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Trials of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird and “The Scottsboro Boys” Racism was prevalent during the 1930s. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a Black man named Tom Robinson illustrates the pressures of racism. Harper Lee depicts what happens when he allegedly rapes a white woman. This case is similar to that of the historical trial of “Scottsboro Boys” in which nine Black males allegedly raped two white women and were sentenced for it.…

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racism in the 1930’s was at its peak in its intensity, and in a courtroom, it was bound to affect the final verdict whether the accused was Black or white. Whites were favored and Blacks were usually the ones blamed for actions of white people, and this is what happened in both, Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Scottsboro Boys trials. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel meant to represent The Scottsboro Boys case in a way that young adults can easily understand. The judges and lawyers of both cases were similar because they all oversaw a case that they knew had very little chance of winning, and their alleged victims are comparable as well. Both trials took place in the 1930’s.…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ida B. Well’s narration in the book On Lynchings, is a story of a time in history of the United States that encompasses the period between late 1800s and the early 1900s. The author provides an account of experiences in the areas inhabited by the African American racial group together with the whites. Being a black woman, she gives her accounts of events in her own environment and vividly provides evidence of the occurrences. She gives an account of the racial discrimination that transpired during the period of Afro-American persecution. She narrates about the law of lynching that was imposed on the black people to control them and terrorize them to fear and respect the whites.…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In society there are the people that stand up for what they believe in, and there are people that are scared to stand up for what they believe in. In To Kill Mockingbird and The Help, both Scout and Skeeter demonstrate the quality of showing respect for their beliefs. Skeeter lives during the 1960 's, A time where discrimination is at an all-time high. For example most whites lived in huge houses and had a lot of money while African-Americans lived very poor and were working as the whites maids. While Skeeter is in her early 20s, Scout is just starting her life as a young girl.…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Hitler, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. are three people who are known worldwide for trying to change the world either for better or for worse. In these peoples’ lives, what common issue drove their motives and actions? Racism. Racism is what people often associate slaves, African Americans, and even common problems in today’s society (such as the riot “Black Lives Matter”) with. However, the argument can be made that racism was a much larger problem in the 1930s, which is when the events of To Kill a Mockingbird took place.…

    • 2600 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Laura Wexler the author of “Fire in a Canebrake” gives a very detailed nonfictional narrative of an event which is proclaimed to be the last mass lynching in American history. Wexler shines some light on the part of American history that isn’t talked about as much, the Civil Rights era. The author captivates the thin line of racial tension as well as racial ignorance that can be felt throughout everyday life in most rural cities in the south. The book takes place in Monroe, Georgia, a rural city that is roughly forty miles east of Atlanta. The city of Monroe from what Wexler has written is no different than any other rural town in America in 1946.…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Hortense Powdermaker’s book, Stranger and Friend, chronicles her experiences doing fieldwork throughout her career. In it, she discusses culture as shared meaning, where context and history give different components of a society social value. Through this process, essential qualities of a culture develop. The theory with which Powdermaker views culture, cultural essentialism, is one which uses these essential qualities as means of identification to form groups of people. This differs from Malinowski’s functionalist view, which claims that culture serves the needs of individuals rather than of larger communities.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of the most banned and challenged books today because of its content; the latest ban being in an eighth-grade classroom in Mississippi of October 2017. It’s commonly regarded as using offensive language that causes students, or rather parents to be uncomfortable. School districts have stated that the same themes can be taught through use of other literary methods that do not contain offensive language such as when Lee uses “nigger.” Due to the current race relations, the themes of racism and prejudice used in To Kill a Mockingbird are topics that stand relevant.…

    • 1882 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” ~Rosa Parks. The roots of racism have passed down through generations because parents force their children to follow racial traditions in order for them to continue those norms for future generations.…

    • 1529 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Student: Teresa Nguyen Class: English Communications Date: Grade: 12 Teacher: Mrs De Blasio What film techniques does Tate Taylor use to engage the viewer and present the ideas of injustice? Director Tate Taylor, in The Help, explores, through the lives of black maids, the injustice and imprudent judgments made towards the African American community in the 1960s. Camera work, dialogue, mise-en-scenè, and colours reveal the juxtaposing lifestyles of the racial classes, and the lack of development in society’s treatment of coloured people. Sounds expose the inferiority and challenges that African Americans experienced in attempting to display basic human behaviours, whilst historical context refers to the Jim Crow laws that…

    • 1064 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays