Feminism In The Help

Superior Essays
The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, is a novel that describes the lives of African American maids and the white families they work for. They clean, cook, take care of white children, run errands, and do many other things. They also work for less than minimum wage. The novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s. This time period was right after the Civil War and many African American people were fighting hard for equal rights. In the 1960’s, a large Civil Rights movement was going on, and many African American families were scared that the white families would injure, attack, or fire them if they were caught trying to change the way the segregated city was run. Due to this, I believe that the addition of a civil rights activist …show more content…
After joining bridge club, she decides that Hilly Holbrook would be the least likely to join the movement, and Skeeter Phelan would be the most likely. The maids fear the white families, and this encourages Phoebe to go about her plan subtly. She sneaks books about the movement into bridge club, and she will leave them somewhere that the white women may feel inclined to pick them up and read them. After a while, some white women, Elizabeth Leefolt in particular, have begun being kinder to their maids. When Hilly suggests the African American bathroom, Elizabeth doesn't act on the idea, and the bathroom is never built. After being kind to the maids, Phoebe gains popularity in the group, and Hilly becomes the outsider. The league that she had organised slowly loses members as more people begin to recognize that African Americans aren't that different. After being isolated as a consequence of her racism, Hilly begins to grow angry at the maids. This is because she thinks they brought the books, and she wants them to be punished for what has happened to her. Hilly fires her maid, and she refuses to pay her for the services she has done. She steals things from her friends after bridge club meetings, and then, she blames it on the maid that works there. Consequently, many maids are fired, and some are unable to support their

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The Help is Kathryn Stockett’s (Jackson, Mississippi) debut novel rendering black maids’ voices in a wonderful dialect (Law, it’s hot out there.), which takes some getting used to. Jackson, Mississippi, 1962: black maids are raising white children, taking care of entire households and get paid peanuts.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The outraged parents yelled and threatened Ruby Bridges. Ruby Bridges did not have an easy life because of angry people and segregation.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After a couple weeks of living with the Boatwright sisters Lily notices May luring bugs out of the house with graham crackers, something she remembers her mother doing. She asks May if she knew of her mother Deborah and she says that she lived in the pink house. Lily is so happy about the fact that she found some past of her mother. Zach eventually ends up in jail after his friend threw a bottle at a white man for discriminating them.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Later in the chapter Mrs. Leefolt invites all of her friends over for a game of bridge; during the game, Mrs. Leefolt brings up the idea of the colored people having a separate bathroom. This sparks an idea in her friend, Skeeter, and later Skeeter approaches Aibileen and asks if he ever wants to change things. Later, Aibileen…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Stereotypes In Sitcoms

    • 1646 Words
    • 7 Pages

    TITLE: Portrayal of coloured people in foreign sitcoms INTRODUCTION I have chosen this topic because, being an Indian, I, myself have noticed Indians being portrayed not realistically but stereotypically in foreign sitcoms. And not just Indians but all people of colour. Pick any foreign sitcom, be it The big bang theory, The Simpsons or any movie like Mean girls, etc, you will notice that they all have this one thing in common: Stereotypes.…

    • 1646 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Elie Wiesel's The Help

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Help is a novel that dives deep into the story of two black maids who are decimated because of the color of their skin and a white female writer. The story starts off in the 1960s in Mississippi where racism is common. Minny and Aibileen are very close friends. Their friendship is so strong because they spend most of their life cleaning up after white families and their kids. They are always together and spend a lot of time together thus causing them to become so close.…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The movie the help is about a group of maids and their relationship with a white female journalist. Rather than a movie about the dark racial past, the movie shatters some common stereotypes. The movie shows that in a time when Jim Crow laws were still standing that Caucasian Americans and African Americans can come together for a common cause. The movie starts off with Aibileen talking to Skeeter telling her about where she was born and what she does with the family she works for. In the movie the journalist, whose name is Skeeter, comes back from college and is hoping to become a writer.…

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They would not let blacks go to the same schools as the whites. Blacks were supposed to sit in the back of a bus while the whites could sit in the front. When Bridges was chosen to go to the white school, people screamed, “ Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate” ( Ruby Bridges). They also called her mean names. Mrs. Stine, the store owner, would not let Bridges or their family go into their store because they want to be separated.…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Feminism has been around for many years and will continue to remain part of our immediate future. The term “Votes for Women” was coined in 1872 when the British women were determined to fight for their rights of being treated equally to the male gender. These women eventually were able to receive their rights of voting and therefore make it possible for the women of the twentieth century to exercise their right to vote. Even though this right has been given to the women of now, they still face hardships and unequal rights then that of men.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Help: Skeeter Phelan

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “The Help” is a story about the colored maids of Jackson Mississippi and how they are treated in the Civil Rights Era. During the Civil Right Era Black Maids were referred to as colored because they were treated differently because they did not have the same skin color as the white people. The film shows us how discriminative the white women of Jackson can be until one girl named Skeeter takes it upon herself to write a book and change the perspective of the people in Mississippi. The film shows us that the white women of Jackson wanted spate bathrooms and to basically treat the black maids like they were slaves. But one women shows them to stand up for their rights and fight back to be treated equally.…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Aibileen is also instrumental in convincing Minnie to tell her story to Skeeter; once Minnie talks, the other maids begin talking, too. Another important moment is when Hilly humiliates Skeeter in front of the League. This one act changes up how all the white women in town treat Skeeter and sets up a kind of tension between them which requires an over-the-top repayment: toilets all over Hilly 's lawn and a book which cryptically reveals that Hilly once ate human refuse.…

    • 2042 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As time progresses it has become a sought after goal for filmmakers and producers to create films that their audience can resonate with. As more movies are being made, the fight to create something astonishing and thought-provoking grows larger and larger. The movie “The Help” written and directed by Tate Taylor creates a staggering impression on audiences all around because of the real life and personal qualities within the film. The film The Help captures the lives of colored maids working in white homes during the Civil Rights era in 1962. The film takes place in Jackson, Mississippi and tells the story of a white woman named Skeeter who is attempting to expose racism by writing a book from the point of view of colored maids.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Movie Review – The Help ENGL – 201 October 4, 2012 “The Help” based on a best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett, a story of three women who take extraordinary risk in writing a novel based on the stories from the view of black maids and nannies. Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, a young girl sets out to change the town. Skeeter, who is 21 years old, white, educated from Ole Miss, dreams of becoming a journalist. She returns home to find the family maid, Constantine, gone and no one will explain to her what happened. Skeeter acquires a job as a columnist for the local paper at the being of the movie.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The movie The Help was directed by Tate Taylor. Tate Taylor 's main purpose of making the film was to show the life of black women and overall race inequality during the 1960 's. The story of the movie sets during the 1960 's when slavery had disappeared but inequality continued throughout the country, but the location of this movie sets place in Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights era. The Help is about a white girl named Skeeter who went through college to become a writer, unlike many white girls who would go to college just to get married. To become a writer, Skeeter had to find something to write about, and her heart went out towards the black maids that were working for white families.…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Feminism In The Open Door

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Nasserism and the revolution of 1952 came to Egypt with a number of changes, and not just through land reform, voting rights for women, and the nationalization of the Suez Canal. The new era that followed the 1952 coup did not only affect politics and the economy. In tandem with economic reform and social justice movements, Egyptians faced a change in the collective mind of the nation, the relationships of individuals, new morals and values, and growing national identity. In The Open Door, Latifa al-Zayyat highlights how the political revolution changed the personal lives of Egyptians. Her novel fills the holes that are often left empty by purely historical discussions.…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays