Who Is The Antagonist In The Help

Improved Essays
‘The Help’ is a story about a group of black housemaids in the 1960’s who work in homes of white families in Jackson, Mississippi. ‘The Help’ is told in the point of view of three characters: Aibileen Clark, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, and Minny Jackson. Aibileen and Minny are housemaids who are best friends with opposite personalities. Aibileen is more reserved and quiet, while Minny is known for being a smartmouth and talking back and frequently getting in trouble. Skeeter is an aspiring writer who has a passion for education and actually worked hard in college unlike some of her friends. The three of them together narrate the story. Aibileen works for Elizabeth Leefolt who is one of Skeeter's best friends. Minny on the other hand formerly

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
  • Decent Essays

    The Help features a strong protagonist, Aibileen, an African American maid. She is a warm, compassionate woman who bears racial oppression with a quiet resilience. The bitterness over the death of her son prompts Aibileen to help Miss Skeeter reveal the truth about how “white” women treat their maids. Her honourable principles and desire to hold Jackson accountable for the oppression of black domestic workers, gives her the strength to continue working on the project, despite many dangers threatening her. Aibileen is always captured wearing grey-and-white uniforms, blending in with the starched tablecloths and sideboard doilies.…

    • 225 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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…

    • 1642 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    African American Maids

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Mae Mobley is a girl and Raleigh is a boy. When Miss Skeeter has the idea of writing a book about African American maids the first person she interviews is Aibileen. Miss Skeeter and Aibileen’s relationship from this point on being positive, which called people to do their…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Which accounted for the fact that white people lived on the rich valley floor in that little river town in Ohio, and the blacks populated the hills above it, taking small consolation in the fact that every day they could literally look down on the white folks”(Marrison 5). The Help includes more of a positive effect where the characters are more positive or good than evil. Skeeter and Celia (who hires Minny after she gets fired form her other boss), are both good characters toward the maids. Skeeter communicates with the maids to get stories written down and acts if they were white and Celia acts very cheerful and respectful towards Minny where Celia want to sit next to Minny to eat together(Taylor). Aibileen is another important where she takes care the child of her boss and really looks out for her and cares a lot as well as if it were her real child.…

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved 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

    Andrews quotes, “in “The Help” Aibileen’s story is tightly tied to those of white women around her,” (354). Andrews supports that pop-culture shows other minority groups of being unsupportive and fragile without the being of a majority group which Hollywood showed in “The Help;” Reason being since a black women was a maid and a white women was the “ruling” characters. Either way, pop-culture adorns using historically brought down scenarios today to be overt and oppressive of some race. This is not only racial discriminate but rather redefining what it means to…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior 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
  • Great Essays

    Given Circumstances 1. Geographical location, including climate: “The Help” is a drama film released in 2011 focusing on racism, discrimination, and inequality that the African American maids faced. The story of the movie focuses on the relationship between two black maids with a white woman journalist in Jackson, Mississippi. The warm, bright, and sunny days in the movie give the climate condition of Jackson, Mississippi. 2. Date; year, season, time of day:…

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society and culture continue to change as the world familiarizes itself with equality. A story called “The Help” was originally written into a novel by Kathryn Stockett and tells the story regarding a servant that helped her family in the 1960’s. In 2011, the book was created into a screenplay by Tate Taylor. “The Help” captures the oblivious reality of segregation and inequality between white and black people during the 60’s. In the movie, the main character Eugenia, or otherwise known as “Skeeter,” struggles to fit in with her long lost Mississippi friends that are clearly only focused on marriage and reproduction.…

    • 1433 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Introduction The ensuing paper discusses the family dynamics and interpersonal relationships present in the movie The Help. Most specifically, the relationship between a mother and daughter will be explored. We will begin by providing an overlay of the movie’s characters and basic story line. Following this overview, the writings will delve deeper into the environment, values, and roles that shape the Phelan family.…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When she moved back home, instead of dropping her interests of becoming a writer and looking for a husband, Skeeter started looking for a job at a newspaper. Skeeter views African-American maids in a different way than the rest of her community. She is interested in their point of view and how they feel about the families they have worked for and how they are treated. While others blow them off and treat them like they were insignificant. In the movie, Skeeter is describing to Miss Stein, an editor at a New York book publisher and also her mentor, that she would like to write a book from the perspective of the help.…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There are strict rules and social standards to limit and control not only on Blacks for their behavior, but also to restrict Whites who have concerned about those rules. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a middle class white woman graduated from University of Mississippi. In the movie, Skeeter plays a role as speaker for the black maids. Since the Whites have strong sense of ethnocentrism at the time, believing in their inherent superiority, the voice of the Blacks can barley or never be heard. Also, Skeeter wants to become a successful writer, knowing that it is very difficult for woman to be a writer at the time, speaking up for black maids will be one stone kills two birds for this situation.…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior 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
  • Superior Essays

    The Help is a movie that was adopted from Kathryn Stockett’s novel by the same name. The film takes place during the 1960s in the seemingly bright and blooming town of Jackson, Mississippi, however as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that beneath this town lays a depressing world of prejudice, hate, and separation. The story of the film is being told from three different women’s perspectives: Skeeter Phelan, Aibileen Clark, and Minny Jackson. The film’s protagonist, Skeeter, is a young white woman that just recently graduated from college and dreams of being a published writer going so far as to contact one of the biggest publishers in New York. As the plot progresses, it becomes clear that Skeeter doesn’t fit into this small town Jackson…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays