THE HELP by  Kathryn Stockett

Write a summary of the plot .

The story begins with a few households. On first sight, very normal. But when you read a little further you discover that they have a housekeeper. And not just a housekeeper, but a black one. Just like all the other households in Jackson, Mississippi in the south of America in the early 1960’s. You’ll also discover that the maids aren’t treated as well as they should be.

The store is read in three characters: Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and Skeeter Phelan. Aibileen and Minny both work for a white woman that treats them badly. Skeeter is a white girl who thinks that it is weird and awkward that she has to ignore the help. As Minny puts it nicely: ‘She’s one of those that thanks us maids.’ Skeeter wants to be a writer and what is a better way to make a name for yourself then to document this barrier between black and white?

She first talks to Aibileen, who is sceptic of this plan. But finally she agrees to go along and she convinces other housekeepers to also tell their story to Skeeter. Skeeter publishes her book anonymously and it sets in the fictional town Niceville. This book soon becomes a best-seller, and the women of Jackson begin realizing that the characters are an awful lot like themselves.

They’re all convinced, but there is one woman that particularly has an interest in finding out who it is all about: Holly Holbrook. Skeeter and Holly were best friends once, but they have very different opinions about the racial matter. In the end, it is a secret about Hilly that Minny reveals in Skeeter's book that silences Hilly. The book becomes a powerful force in giving a voice to the black maids and causes the community of Jackson to reconsider the carefully drawn lines between white and black.

Explain the title.

the title is very easy explained. This book is about the housekeepers, ‘the help’-s.  In the book the white women are particularly cruel to their maids. They barely normally talk to them and even though you would think they would be somehow grateful, they seem to barely care. Nevertheless, it would be hard for them to live without their ‘helps’. They do the household, they even raise the children! The black women sincerely hate their bosses, especially Minny. She is very sassy and if she doesn’t like something, she says it. She has been fired over this multiple times. Aibileen says: ‘The only thing that kept you from being fired at Miss Holbrooks place, was  that you cook so nice and she was deaf.’ For the black women, it is not just helping. It is their job, but also their burden, because they keep getting treated very poorly.

Discuss the themes of your novel.

I think the main theme is racism. The black women can’t be more than helpers. They have nothing to say in the house that they work in. Their lives and families are less important than the white women’s ‘problems’.  They are often accused of stealing and lying, and they’re helpless because they can’t defend themselves.

But it is also about courage. Courage to speak up to everyone you love, because you believe something. Skeeter was almost engaged to a guy, but when she told him she had written the book, he never returned her calls.  Her family is against it, and so are her friends. And Minny and Aibileen off course, they face another hard fact: they could lose their jobs, reputations, and a white woman can ruin a black woman’s whole life.

What is the setting of the story? When and where does it take place. How do you know? something about the social/cultural setting?

The tory takes place in Jackson, Mississippi. You know that because it is told repeatedly. The importance of this is that Jackson lays in the south of America, where the racial issue was the biggest. It’s set in 1963, in the heat of the moment.

It somehow had become natural that you had a black housekeeper, nobody thought twice about  it. There used to be cotton fields in that area, where the black people also worked for the white people. In the book it sometimes does say; ‘Up in the north of this country, they stood up against the racial problem.’

Is the story told with flashbacks or flash forwards, or is the story chronological throughout?

It is pretty chronological. Sometimes there are flashbacks, but they’re more memories.

Aibileen has a memory when she thinks of her son that passed away a few years before the story begins. She blames it on his white bosses, because they didn’t hurry to get help for him. Also, the writer shows how good Aibileen is in praying, when she talks about the people she’s prayed. All of them got what Aibileen prayed for.

Minny also gets a few flashbacks. She thinks about the things she said that got her fired. Also, she did this ‘great bad thing’ that remains unknown until the last chapter. But she does think about it a lot. Minny does really like what she did a lot, but she never talks about it, because she is also very embarrassed of it.

The memories of Skeeter are mostly of her being bullied for being so tall and of her family’s former housekeeper and her former nanny, whom she saw more as a mother, Constantine. Skeeter goes looking for her, because when Skeeter returns from university in the beginning of the book, all of a sudden Constantine is gone. Nobody will answer her when she asks about Constantine. That’s a trigger for Skeeter to investigate the position of the black women in her hometown.

Describe the main characters. How do they develop in the story; why do they say/do what they say/do, what is the relevance of their actions to the story?

Aibileen: In the first few chapters, she is not one to talk about her situation. She really just ignores the problem, because as she says: ‘There is nothing  I can do about it, I’m too old. It is for the young people to change the situation, not for the old.’ But since her son has died, she starts to think about it. And since there is nothing left to loose for her, she decides to take her chances and gets it published. I think that throughout the book, she gets brave, and she now dares to do things. Furthermore, she got more confidence, because she now knows what impact her words can have.

Minny: Minny is someone that says what she thinks. But, the further the story goes, she learns how to control her mouth. She also learns that, if you not tell anyone something, you can use it against someone, which she does, at the end of the book. That what keeps Holly quiet.

Skeeter: Skeeter hardens a bit during the story. In vain she tries to look for a husband, but she is critical. She won’t just take a man for his fortune or good name. In that, she is very different from the rest of her friends. She went to university, while the rest stayed home and got married. That makes her different from the rest, but it doesn’t help her get a man. Also, she learns why Constantine(her former nanny) was fired, it meant a  lot to her, and when she goes looking for her, she finds out that Constantine died. This all makes her tougher than she was at the beginning of the book.

From whose perspective is the story told? How do you know and why did the writer choose this point of view?

You read it from three perspectives. Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. I think that you read the story from these three because:

Aibileen is the quiet one. She represents the black people that have been done wrong, yet at first they weren’t going to be making so big of a deal out of it. But now that it comes closer to home, and she gets this opportunity thrown at her, she has got to take it. She also stands for a fair fight, and she proves that you can win, even though you’ve fought fair.

Minny is the drama queen. She is the one that is not always believed because she makes so much up and exaggerates all the time. But when ‘the revolution’ actually begins (after the book has been published) she proves to be a very loyal friend. Plus, she is someone that can stand up for herself.

Skeeter is the white one of the three. I think it’s very important that you also read from her point of view, because the reader needs to realize that not all white people are bad. Not all are conservative, some want to actually change the situation. I think it’s really important to have a white woman on your side, because the white people will sooner listen to someone ‘of their own’.

What is the most exciting part of the book and why?

The chapter where you finally find out what Minny did  that was so bad is very exciting. You finally find out that Minny pooped, collected it, and made a cake out of it, chocolate. She gave it to Holly, and that’s why no-one can find out about it. But off course Skeeter and the rest of the housekeepers now know it, so they still can use it against her.

This is the most exciting part because the whole book has been talking about it, but you never find out what happened, until now.

What symbols/metaphors does the writer use in his novel?

A lot of the characters are metaphors, I think. They stand for different types of people in a revolution.

There is the kind that has always played along, but is prepared to sacrifice everything for this purpose.

There is the always-shining one, the one that has always wanted attention, and now she’s got it. She knows how to handle situations like this, so she’s really useful.

And then there is the one that is called ‘the betrayer’ by the defense. The one that, when you first look at it, switched sides. But the nice thing about this one is that she has all the inside information.

Give your own opinion of the book.

I absolutely loved this book. At first I wasn’t so interested, because I didn’t really know what it was about and I thought it was about people who did households. I guess that turned out to be true, but the story was so much more than that.

I loved how clever it was. It had all kinds of clues in chapters for later storylines, yet nothing was revealed. I really laughed when I found out what Minny had  done, but I had a kind of place-exchanging shame as  well.

I really liked how the story was really heavy, but it had so much humor in it, that it evened-up.