The Help



The Help

Introduction

The subject matter of the movie could be said as the prevalence of racial discrimination in the midst of the civil rights turmoil. While covering other aspects present in the society at that time, the movie mainly focuses on discrimination for black women (Stockett, 2013). Aibileen plays one of the major characters in the movie. She is a 50 year old black maid who has been doing this very particular job over the past years, and has raised 17 children in her life. She recently has lost her only son, and is not very satisfied with her life as she has not much left to be content of. Minny is her only friend, and probably the only one she relies on. Minny is very outspoken, and he inability to control this attribute has made her fired a number of times. Even without such experiences, Minny has taken nothing out of it and still continues to be the same. With all such characteristics, she is a great cook, and it is the only factor that builds up a little of her reputation.

Skeeter on the other hand, is a young white woman who has just moved back to her home and has found that her beloved childhood maid has left the job. Skeeter has been focused throughout her university life, and wants to begin her career as a writer. The first job that she found is of a columnist in the local paper. Skeeter did not have Constantine with her now, and so she asks Aibileen to answer her domestic questions. What Skeeter observed is that discrimination regarding the black maids exists in the society, who spends their whole lives taking care of white children. With this thought and disturbance, she decided to write a book based on the lives of maids.

For this sake, Skeeter approaches maids and asks them about their lives. She soon gets disappointed realizing that none of them are willing to answer any of her questions with the fear of losing their job. Aibileen takes the initiative and decides to share her story. She was a very positive person, and always tried to forgive people for their mistakes. It could be observed at this one place where Aibileen says, “God says we need to love our enemies. It hard to do. But it can start by telling the truth. No one had ever asked me what it feel like to be me”.

After facing several difficulties in her job, Minny also finally decides to share her part of the story with Skeeter for her to complete the book. With the compilation of the book, having the stories of Aibileen and Minny, Skeeter sends the book to Stein, who is an editor for Harpor and Row. After reviewing the book, Stein says that it might be of some interest, but he will only be able to publish the book if Skeeter manages to add atleast a dozen more stories of such maids to make iot ...