The Help

Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, was born in Jackson, Mississippi. This is her first novel. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and creative writing, she decided to start writing this book. She never thought that it would be as popular as it was, and quite frankly never thought anyone would even read it, which is why she wasn’t exactly trying to achieve anything with it. But since it came out, this story about the relationships between African American servants and the white women who employed them in Mississippi, spent over 30 weeks on the New York Time’s best seller list. She started writing the book after Sep. 11^th, when she was living in New York City. She started to really miss home, seeing as she couldn’t talk to her family to tell them she was fine. She started to write in the voice of her maid Demetrie, the maid she had while she was growing up. As she kept writing, personalities from that voice developed into her characters, and she then made it into a book.

The Help is story about two black maids, Aibaleen and Minny, and a white “socialite” who takes on the task of writing a story about what it is like to work as a black maid in the South’s white homes. This novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. Aibaleen works for the Leefolts, a white family, and takes care of everything while raising their daughter, Mae Mobley, who Aibaleen calls her “special baby.” Mae Mobley is physically abused and neglected by her mother. Aibaleen tries to build up Mae Mobley’s self esteem and teach her about racial equality, throughout the entire book, telling her always “you is smart, you is kind, you is important,” while making Mae Mobley repeat it. Before Aibaleen started work at the Leefolts, her son died in a workplace accident, something that could have been prevented if his boss would have just helped him. You feel the pain she is going through throughout the entire novel, as she is trying to raise another baby, constantly thinking of her own being gone. Her life with this family is way better than, say, Minny’s, because Aibaleen actually knows how to keep her mouth shut and just do her job. You almost feel like she is some what respected in this household, compared to the way others are treated and talked to. Minny, on the other hand, takes care of Hilly’s mother, Miss Walters, while constantly being scrutinized and put down every second by Hilly. Hilly is an awful woman who treats Minny like dirt. Miss Walters seems to actually like Minny, treating her with some respect. You get a good taste of how the book is going to go from the first paragraph of the novel: spoken by Aibaleen, “MAE MOBLEY was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, thats what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.”   

This novel is very touching, constantly making you want to keep reading. It just seems so real, and makes you really think of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagining what life was like for women back then. I have never been so intrigued in a book, never wanting to put it down. These woman spent all there time raising other people’s children, when most had children of their own, along with everything else that needed to be done in the house. I just can’t believe that Stockett wrote this without thinking people would read it or that it was even any good. She did an incredible job portraying something that is so intense to try and talk about, because in today’s society, this topic is something that people don’t want to remember, let alone speak about. I applaud Kathryn Stockett tremendously.