The Help by Kathryn Stockett
After reading The Help, you will be unable to divorce the words ‘Jackson, Mississippi, 1962’ from notions of racial discrimination, and all that this entails. Kathryn Stockett chooses to set her novel in a milieu predicated on the racial divides between white families and their black maids, at a time when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was beginning to gain momentum. In doing so, she delves into a seriously controversial, taboo subject of modern American history, predominantly using a black voice. This may seem like an ambitious ploy in the debut novel of a white woman who grew up in Jackson, but Stockett pulls it off incredibly well. The result is a beautifully written novel in its most human form, simultaneously heart-warming and heartbreaking.
Stockett takes a three-pronged approach to the narrative: the story unfolds through the eyes of Aibileen and Minny, two black maids who work for ladies from the cream of white society, and Miss Skeeter, the 23-year-old daughter of a cotton plantation owner and seemingly a pillar of this segregated community. Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the pain caused by her own son’s tragic death, is a model of obedience and submission, whilst Minny’s sassy tongue earns her continual dismissals, and leads her to do a ‘Terrible Awful Thing’ to one of her previous employers. Skeeter, so called because of ‘mosquito-thin’ looks she had as a child, is desperate to be a writer. Longing to discover what has become of her own cherished maid who has disappeared, she hits upon the idea of collating stories that the domestic maids of Jackson have of working for white Southern families. Thus our unlikely trio is brought together by the compulsion to voice previously silenced tales and by the subsequent consequences of this radical and controversial act.Interestingly, those most alienated in this novel are actually white: Miss Skeeter lives just outside of town, reflecting her status as an outsider from the white circle of friends dominated by the chief baddie, Miss Hilly; Celia Foote, a pink and fluffy delight, lives in an isolated area and, too poor to be prejudiced, is eschewed by the white women because she married Miss Hilly’s ex-boyfriend. Their ultimate alienation exemplifies what happens to enemies of the society’s ringleader, regardless of race. Whilst the black community has an indomitable sense of solidarity, the white community is fickle, where ‘friends’ come and go: Miss Skeeter is a shining example of this. The Benefit that Miss Hilly organises for the ‘Poor Starving Children of Africa’ (despite victimising the Poor African-Americans of Jackson) is Stockett’s critique of this hypocrisy and is arguably still relevant today: how often are our heads turned by a well-publicised disaster and subsequent charity, thereby ignoring the problems under our own noses?
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| Skeeter (Emma Stone) with her friends in the upcoming film adaptation |
In spite of the serious subject matter with no easy resolutions, The Help is immensely readable because it is peppered with light-hearted images: there is a farcical image of Miss Hilly’s garden overflowing with toilets, and it is surely no coincidence that Aibileen’s neighbour is called Ida Peek (‘I had a peek’). This is fundamentally a novel about women; men remain distanced and largely two-dimensional. Minny in particular rises out gloriously: her exterior toughness masks an interior vulnerability that comes from an abusive alcoholic husband. It is when she, our strongest character, frees herself that we see a metaphorical glimmer of hope for future freedom. The Help is a compelling read and a novel to cherish.
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