Women Exposed In The Help By Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s. At this point in history, people of European ancestry are still held to a higher degree than African Americans. This leads to most white families hiring colored maids, referred to as the Help, who have less opportunities and privileges than the people who hire them. Over the course of the novel, the reader takes the story from the point of view of three women: Aibileen Clark, an older black maid who was born and raised in the Mississippi area, Minny Jackson, a younger black maid with a tendency to talk back to her employers, and Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a white woman fresh out of college. The Help explores the emotions and thoughts of these women as they face segregation. Aibileen Clark is a fifty-three-year-old black maid in Jackson, …show more content…
Learning about all of their hardships inspires Skeeter to learn to clean and take care of a household. This lets her gain knowledge of the domain that the Help have. After the Holbrook’s maid, Yule May, is fired for stealing one of the household’s rings to pay for her children's education, more maids come forward to tell their stories to Skeeter. The maids no longer have fear of losing their jobs if it means exposing the negative sides of being the Help. Skeeter ends up publishing the maid’s stories, positive and negative, and titles her book “Help”, using different alias’ for the woman. With the power of the Help’s words, the book influences the community to be aware of civil rights issues. Overall, “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett explores themes of race, society, the home, love, and justice through its use of 1960s segregation in its prime. By learning of these behaviors through the first person point of view of three wonderful women, the reader takes a journey to the time period and the struggles that the Help