Rhetorical Analysis: The Help by Kathryn Stockett The Help is a novel written in 2009 by Kathryn Stockett that has been featured on the New York Time’s best-sellers list. The story is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s and tells the story of black maids working in white households. The story addresses issues such as racism and gender equality roles. The story is told in the perspective of three different characters: Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter. Aibileen and Minny are working black maids from one side of the town and Skeeter is a white college graduate and aspiring writer from the opposite side of town. Throughout the story, Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter collaborate on writing a book telling the stories of how black maids were
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There was no phone or mail services after the attack on the Twin Towers, leaving Stockett unable to contact her family to let them know she was ok. Feeling homesick from the lack of communication, she started writing in the voice of a maid she had growing up as a way to comfort herself, which conformed into the voice of Aibileen. Minny was formed from the attitude she started writing that didn’t seem to fit the Aibileen character she had formed. Eventually, she decided to write an actual book around the characters, set in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s right before the start of the civil rights movement. I believe Stockett also wrote the help to confront the problems she had begun to discover about the “relationship” with her and her maid growing up; she spent more and more time writing in the maid’s point of view serving a white family during a time period where life was a game of chance if you were a black …show more content…
Stories of maids being abused by their employers, Hilly “helping” Yule May get four years in prison, and Robert Brown being beaten when it was discovered he used a white bathroom by mistake are examples of violence in the book. The change from racial inequality is prevented by violence being used against the black community by the white populations. Stockett uses the violence and racial tension from that time period in the book to add emotion and drama to the story, but it also shows how dangerous change is; anyone who tries to make a change or anything relative to change would be in serious
There was no phone or mail services after the attack on the Twin Towers, leaving Stockett unable to contact her family to let them know she was ok. Feeling homesick from the lack of communication, she started writing in the voice of a maid she had growing up as a way to comfort herself, which conformed into the voice of Aibileen. Minny was formed from the attitude she started writing that didn’t seem to fit the Aibileen character she had formed. Eventually, she decided to write an actual book around the characters, set in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s right before the start of the civil rights movement. I believe Stockett also wrote the help to confront the problems she had begun to discover about the “relationship” with her and her maid growing up; she spent more and more time writing in the maid’s point of view serving a white family during a time period where life was a game of chance if you were a black …show more content…
Stories of maids being abused by their employers, Hilly “helping” Yule May get four years in prison, and Robert Brown being beaten when it was discovered he used a white bathroom by mistake are examples of violence in the book. The change from racial inequality is prevented by violence being used against the black community by the white populations. Stockett uses the violence and racial tension from that time period in the book to add emotion and drama to the story, but it also shows how dangerous change is; anyone who tries to make a change or anything relative to change would be in serious