Analysis

The Help - Characters 

Aibileen Clark: Aibileen's heart is so big, we just might all fit inside it. If you're lucky. 

Minny Jackson: Minny and Aibileen are the two primary women representing "the help" Eugenia

 "Skeeter" Phelan: Skeeter Phelan is a bundle of contradictions. She's a 23-year-old white woman. 

Hilly Holbrook: Hilly is the novel's most dastardly villain. She's married to William 

Holbrook. Elizabeth Leefolt: Like her best friend Hilly, Elizabeth falls squarely into the villain category.

 Mae Mobley Leefolt: Let's start off with a few facts on the girl. Mae Mobley is two years old when The Help opens. 

Celia Rae Foote: Celia is an endearing character. 

Johnny Foote: Johnny is a bright light in the novel. He’s part of the society that oppresses people. 

Constantine Bates: Constantine is a beloved and tragic figure. Lulabelle Bates: Lulabelle is Constantine's daughter and she's about Skeeter's age.  

Robert Brown: Robert Brown was friends with Aibileen's son Treelore. Louvenia Brown: 

Louvenia is Robert Brown's mother and one of the women whose story goes into Help. Yule May Crooked 

Yule May is a college-educated woman. She's also Hilly Holbrook's maid. 

Miss Fredericks: Miss Fredericks is Elizabeth Leefolt's mother. 

Mister Golden: Mister Golden is the editor of the Jackson Journal. He gives Skeeter her first job, as a writer. 

 

Leroy Jackson: Leroy is Minny's husband. He physically abuses her on a regular basis, 

Reverend Johnson: Reverend Johnson is the Reverend at Aibileen and Minny's church. 

Charlotte Phelan: Charlotte is Skeeter's mother and another ambiguous character.

 Carlton Phelan: Skeeter's father believes in racial equality and is not afraid to tell it to the likes of the Senator. 

Elaine Stein: Elaine Stein is the literary agent who publishes The Help and who connects Skeeter with a job. 

Treelore: Treelore is Aibileen's son who died a little over two years before the novel opens. Miss 

Walter(s): Miss Walter or Miss Walters is Hilly's mother. 

Stuart Whitworth, Jr.: Stuart is Skeeter's love interest. He's not a terrible guy, just a spineless one. 

 

 

The Help – Plot Analysis 

 

Setting and exposition:

The Help is set in August 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi. The book is about the lives of three women living in Jackson right around when the Civil Rights movement began. 

 

Rising Action: 

Skeeter learns that Aibilin's only son Treelore die. He wanted to write about a black man growing up in Mississippi. This triggers Skeeter wanting to write a book about black maids working for wealthy white families in Mississippi. Then Skeeter asks Aibilin to help her with the book she wants to write. Aibilin refuses because she is scared of the las against black people but eventually she agrees. She suggests one of her friends Minny helps too. Hilly accuses Yule May (a maid) of stealing and is sent to jail. The maids are upset at Hilly and over ten of the black women decided to help Skeeter to write her book. Aibilin, Minny, Skeeter, and a lot of other maids worked really hard in the book.

 

Climax 

The climax of the story occurs when the maids come together to help Skeeter to write her book about the life of black people by providing their personal life experiences. Also, when the book is published and Hilly confronts Aibilin about the book.

 

Falling action

The falling action is when Aibilin leaves Mae Mobley and she repeats to her that she is kind, smart, and important. 

 

Resolution:

Aibilin is finally free to start over a new life without working as a maid

Conflict

The conflictof the novel is during segregation, the friction between blacks and whites is what creates the novel. One of the main conflicts is segregation, there is a big conflict between two prominent characters, Hilly and Skeeter, wealthy white women. Some of the themes in this novel lie in the location and social aspects of living in a small southern town at the time.

The social groups on which this novel focuses are white housewives, whose group consists of Skeeter, a farmer's daughter, who has just returned from college, and "The Help" or a group of servants who are , descendants of African Americans. The Help is forced to obey their irrationally needy bosses, cooking for them, cleaning for them, and even raising their children, only to be treated inhumanely and unfairly by the housewives. 

For example, one of the housewives, Hilly Holbrook, a seemingly contentious character alone, was very suggestive of enforcing a bathroom law, which made it mandatory for every household to have a separate bathroom for her help as a "safety precaution." security" because they could transmit diseases through their body fluids. In situations like these, African Americans were very knowledgeable and really showed the gap in reality between the two groups. This, in turn, caused conflict between them, as African-Americans were looked down upon by whites and African-Americans viewed whites as threatening and evil-minded. 

Whites often refer to blacks with descriptions of animals to build a barrier between them. Much of the conflict is built around the ignorance of whites towards blacks. The conflict between The Help and the housewives emphasizes the issue of segregation. The author, Kathryn Stockett, was trying to accurately recreate the injustices of racism.

#Gabriela Aguilar 

Racism 

 Racism is manifested in the lives of black maids in different ways there are no openings for education, being exposed to social dispatches that they're sick with contagious conditions not carried by whites, and suffering under rude and vituperative employers that believe people of different races are biologically different Hilly, for illustration, obsesses over restroom sanitation, calls the maids"Nigras" and treats domestic workers cruelly. Racism is passed through generations by education since children don't make difference with the maids until they're young. On the other hand, Miss Skeeter risks prodding the violent wrathfulness of her community by helping the maids publish their stories about working for white families. Skeeter tries to see the world through the eyes of the maids and makes the rather egregious consummation that they too are precious humans with the same capacity for emotion and intelligence as her white peers. By feting the essential humanity of these women, Skeeter comes to realize that the institutional laws and social practices that separate people grounded on race are unethical and innovated on a social frame of falsehoods and exploitation.

 Social circles

The connections between womanish characters in the book are defined nearly simply by their social circles. From the opening of the novel, it's clear that Hilly is the social lynchpin, the" queen freak"the rest of the women fawn over. She calls the shots, organizes League events, sets up dates, sways fiscal opinions, and eventually instructs her musketeers to fire or discipline their maids. Despite Hilly's temper and manipulation, utmost of the white womanish characters define themselves through their relationship with her. The women do not treat each other kindly, and more importantly, they are not open or honest with each other. In discrepancy, the African American womanish social circles are depicted as loving, trusting, and necessary for survival. The most prominent fellowship is between Aibileen and Minny. They partake in the secret of Skeeter's design, but they watch for each other in times of deep vulnerability.

Part of women

Southern society expects women to fulfill a specific domestic part — marry youthfully, take care of the house, and have children. Women aren't only anticipated to abandon career hobbies or cultural dreams, they are also anticipated to want to do so. For African American women, prospects are indeed narrower. During her interviews, Aibileen reveals that she grew up knowing she'd come to be a maid. She noway had bournes to come anything differently. Also, Minny knew she'd come to a maid and knows her daughters will follow the same path. They, too, will leave the academy and concentrate on maintaining a home, albeit for a white woman. While white women are anticipated to immolate their ambition for the sake of feminity, African American women are anticipated to give up their health, safety, and in some cases their own families in immolation to white feminity.

#Adriana Romero

Symbols 

• Minny’s "special ingredient" pie

Minny is proud of her baking skills and she is so famous because of her chocolate custard pie. One day Minny makes a chocolate custard pie including the “special ingredient” of her own feces, and watches Hilly savor two slices of it before telling her the truth. Minny humiliates and degrades Hilly as an act of revenge, but also gains a kind power over her. Now Minny has something to hold over Hilly’s head, a secret she can reveal if Hilly continues to spread rumors about her.

• Bathrooms 

Many white people in the novel believe that black people carry unique diseases that can be transmitted to others by using the same toilet seat. Miss Hilly uses this blatantly racist belief to convince other white women to build separate bathrooms for their black maids. In this way, segregated bathrooms represent the private beliefs and social practices that reinforce and expand institutional segregationist laws. 

#Gabriela Aguilar 

General Information

 The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Help is a fictional novel by American author Kathryn Stockett published in Penguin Books in February 10th, 2009. The story is about Native Americans working with white families in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s.

Stockett began writing the paper for the first time after the 9/11 attacks. It took her five years to complete and was rejected by 60 literary agents, within three years, before representative Susan Ramer agreed to represent Stockett. Since then, The Help has been published in 35 countries and in 42 languages. By August 2011, it had sold seven million copies in print and audio publications and spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Kathryn Stockett

She is known for her 2009 debut novel, The Help, which is about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s.

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and creative writing.

She moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing for nine years. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter. She is working on her second novel.

Genre

Novel, Fiction, Historical novel

Setting

The story of The Help takes place in 1963 during the Civil Rights struggle in Jackson, Mississippi. Many scenes are set in downtown Jackson,in the historic Bellhaven neighborhood. Even though the book is a work of fiction, many of the sites mentioned in the book are real.

Tone

The novel has humorous and often sarcastic parts, clear examples are how Minny and Aibileen describe their experiences. The novel has tragedy and injustice, of the characters. Empathy between women who at one point want to change things for the better and for their family to stop suffering.

Characters

Aibileen Clark

One of the novel’s three narrators, Aibileen is a wise but reserved middle-aged black maid who takes pride in knowing that she has helped raise seventeen white children in her lifetime.

Minny Jackson

Another narrator and protagonist, Minny Jackson is a wise-cracking mother of five who refuses to curb her outspoken personality even though it gets her into trouble with her white employers. 

Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan

The third narrator and protagonist, Skeeter is a young white college graduate who comes from a wealthy Southern family. Strong-willed and individualistic, Skeeter is frustrated by the sexist expectations society has of her.

Hilly Holbrook

The novel’s antagonist, Hilly is on the surface the ideal of the Southern housewife: loyal to her husband, adored by her friends and neighbors, and loving to her two children. Hilly harbors viciously racist beliefs that spur her to treat the black women in the novel as if they were subhuman.

Constantine Bates

Skeeter’s childhood maid, Constantine is like a second mother to her, providing love and compassion. The novel begins in the months after Constantine has left Jackson for Chicago without telling Skeeter.

Symbols

○ Bathrooms

○ Minny’s “Special Ingredient” Pie

#Alejandro Rivera

Summary

 Summary of “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.

The Help takes place in August 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi. At a time when you could find a lot of sexism and racism in the city. The protagonists of this story are three women, a white woman named Skeeter who is a writer who returns to her house after finishing her studies, and two black women named Minny and Aibileen, both of whom work as servants in wealthy households.

Aibileen is a 53-year-old woman who just lost her son in a workplace accident. Also, she has raised seventeen children from white families in her lifetime. She works for the Leefolts who have a 2-year-old girl named Mae Mobley who is physically abused and neglected by her mother Elizabeth. Throughout the novel, Aibileen does everything she can to boost Mae Mobley's self-esteem and tries to teach her about civil rights and racial equality.

On the other hand, we have Minny who is an excellent cook and a very direct person, who works for Hilly Hoolbrok taking care of her mother Miss Walter. One day Minnie is accused of being a thief by Hilly in order to fire her, so Miss Walter leaves for an asylum and Minnie is left without a job. However, Minnie decides to take revenge against Hilly.

After some time of having carried out her revenge, Minnie finds a job with Johnny and Celia Rae Foote Johnny is Hilly ex-boyfriend, and Celia is a Marilyn Monroe double comes from the field. She is shunned by the ladies of high society throughout the novel. Celia makes Minny promise to hide her presence from her husband Johnny from her, which causes the maid a lot of stress.

After knowing the story of two maids Kathryn, the author, shows us the life of Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan who, after returning from a game with her friends, narrates that when she was in her fourth year of university her maid and her confidant Constantine disappeared mysteriously and his family won't tell him why he left.

Skeeter is in contact with an editor at a publishing house in New York, Elaine Stein. Miss Stein advises Skeeter to find any job she can find for a newspaper and then use her spare time to find something controversial to write about.

In this part you can see how the lives of these three women come together because Skeeter gets a job at the Jackson Journal a place where she writes the Miss Myrna column, which deals with housework and relationships, two things about which Skeeter knows nothing. So, she seeks help from a maid to answer the questions that come to her column. With Elizabeth's resigned permission, Skeeter begins meeting with Aibileen for help. Skeeter learns that Aibileen's son, Treelore, was writing a book about his experiences in Mississippi at the time of his death. This motivates Skeeter to try to convince the neighborhood maids to agree to be interviewed for a book showing her views.

Hilly sets Skeeter up on a blind date with Stuart Whitworth, the son of a senator. Stuart gets drunk and insults Skeeter. She never wants to see him again. In December, Minny is discovered by Johnny Foote, the husband of her employer. Johnny realized that his wife Celia had help as soon as she improved the food. He is happy that Minny is here. However, Johnny asks Minny to pretend that he doesn't know about her.

Aibileen agrees to co-write Skeeter's book on the lives of Jackson's maids, and the two-start meeting at night. Eventually, Minny agrees to work with them as well. Aibileen tries to get the other maids to join in, but they are all too scared. Three months after their failed first date, Skeeter and Stuart go out again and even share a passionate kiss. Stuart becomes a normal part of Skeeter's life, though he doesn't know about his secret writing project.

In May 1963, Celia miscarries and reveals that she is the fourth baby she has lost. She fears that if she can't conceive babies, Johnny won't love her anymore. When Minny tries to convince her that Johnny loves her, Celia realizes that Minny and Johnny have found each other. She begs Minny to pretend to Johnny that Celia doesn't know that Johnny doesn't know about Minny.

In July, Hilly's new maid, Yule May who be standing in for Minnie, steals one of her rings. For, Yule has twin sons and is short of the $75 she needs to send both sons to college instead of just one. When Hilly refused to lend him the money, Yule stole the ring from her. Hilly finds out about her and uses her influence to fine Yule $500 and sentence her to four years in the state penitentiary. Anger at Hilly for the way she treated Yule May, plus some persuasion from Minny, convinces eleven more maids to tell her stories for Skeeter's book.

Skeeter and his family have dinner at Stuart's parents' house. Over dinner, the topic keeps coming back Stuart's ex, Patricia Van Devender, who cheated on Stuart with a white civil rights activist. At the end of the night, Stuart breaks up with Skeeter. At the Jackson League of Ladies Benefit Gala, Celia Foote gets very drunk and tries to get Hilly to accept her into the circle of high-society ladies. She ends up ripping Hilly's dress and throwing up on the floor. There she does not make good progress. In the days that follow, Celia becomes depressed and is about to leave Johnny because she doesn't think she's good enough for him. Minny convinces her to let her stay with her.

After these events, Minnie reveals that during the last days that she took care of Hilly's mother, Miss Walter, Minny made a chocolate cake with a touch of her own poop and that Hilly ate two pieces of the cake. That's why Hilly tries so hard to ruin Minny around town. Minny convinces Skeeter and Aibileen that her best protection against Hilly, if her book gets out of her, is to include the cake story in Minny's section. Even if Hilly recognizes the town as Jackson, she won't say anything because it would mean admitting to eating poop.

In December, Skeeter learns that Constantine, the maid who mysteriously disappeared from his life, is dead. After Constantine's daughter Lulabelle and Skeeter's mother Charlotte got into a confrontation, Constantine was fired from her. She moved to Chicago with Lulabelle and died three months later. Also in December, Skeeter and Stuart get back together. At the end of December, Skeeter sends the manuscript of the book, which contains the stories of the maids and is called Maids and Ladies, to Elaine Stein in New York.

In January, Stuart proposes to Skeeter. She agrees, but when she tells him about Maids and Ladies, he takes her proposal back. Also in January, Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny, and the other maids learn that Maids and Maids is going to be published.

When the book comes out, Hilly immediately suspects that the book is set in Jackson and begins campaigning against the maids she suspects were involved. But when she gets to the last chapter, the one about Minny, and reads the cake incident, she changes her mind and tells as many people as possible that the book doesn't take place in Jackson. Still, Hilly confronts Skeeter about her involvement in the book and vows revenge on Aibileen and Minny.

Skeeter is offered a job in New York, which Minny and Aibileen convince her to take. Before leaving, Skeeter arranges for Aibileen to take her old job writing the Miss Myrna column.

Meanwhile, Celia finally tells Johnny about the abortions and about Minny. Johnny and Celia tell Minny that she has a permanent job with them. Meanwhile, Hilly arranges for Minny's abusive husband, Leroy, to be fired from his job and told it's Minny's fault. Leroy then tries to kill Minny but she takes all five of her children, leaves Leroy and moves out of town, but not far from her work with Celia.

However, Hilly is still not satisfied and proves to Elizabeth that Aibileen is the author of a chapter of Maids and Maids. Hilly tries to frame Aibileen for stealing silver, but Elizabeth doesn't cooperate with her plan. However, they do fire Aibileen, anyway. After an emotional goodbye to Mae Mobley, Aibileen discovers that she is about to start a new life, one in which she plans to dedicate herself to writing about her life and the people she meets.

#Alicia Sagastume 

Introduction

 In this blog as a group, we are presenting the analysis of the book "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. The information presented here is based on a deeply moving book filled with poignancy, humor, and hope. To sum up, this blog has been created for academic purposes to show specific information related to the book. 

What is this book about?

The Help shines a light on the racial and social injustice of maids during the era of Jim Crow Laws, illustrating how white women of a privileged society discriminated not only against black women but also against their own race.

Biography