The Help
By: Kathryn Stockett
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" . . .what writers do, which is tell the world something it hasn't yet heard."
As an English major trying to find my writing voice, the story told by the narrative voices in The Help
reminded me about what writers do, which is tell the world something it
hasn't yet heard. The three narrators are Aibileen Clark and Minny
Jackson, African American maids working for white families, and Skeeter
Phelan, a recent graduate of the University of Mississippi with an
English degree. Skeeter gets a job at the local newspaper in Jackson,
Mississippi, as a kitchen-advice columnist and begins asking 'the help"
(the maids) in her friends' homes for help on the column.
Skeeter
applies for a position at Harper & Row publishing company in New
York City and the editor gives her advice for possibly getting a chance
at the job: "Write about something that disturbs you, particularly if it
bothers no one else." Skeeter first thought of issues like illiteracy,
but she realizes that the default of racism in Mississippi in the 1960s
influences the lives of everyone in Jackson. As Skeeter begins talking
with Aibileen for help on the kitchen-advice column, she asks Aibileen
if she wishes things were different. Their conversation begins Skeeter's
idea for a book of interviews with maids and Aibileen's determination
to make her stories known. They start the work that leads to virtually
every maid in the area sharing a story about what it is like to serve
white families and raise white children.
I liked this book
because Stockett writes it in a realistic way, using names and events
that were happening in the country during Civil Rights in a story that
is personal to three different perspectives. There are some fun plays of
drama with the characters and you can imagine the humor that can be
found in the society of Southern belles, which really serves to show an
amazing story where change happened in people.
