The Help was set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi during the most segregated era. In the novel The Help, the author Kathryn Stockett portrays many contrasting elements from racism to sexism. People of color did not have a good job and equal rights in American society. The novel uses contrasting places such as, two towns and two houses. Even though both neighborhoods are in Jackson, Mississippi, they were separated in great detail. In the novel the town of Belhaven represented the Jim Crow laws, “separate but equal”. Meaning that the African Americans where allowed to interact in some situations, but had to live away from the Caucasian people. The town was split into two areas, the black neighborhood and the white neighborhood. The white neighborhoods represented spacious and luxurious living, while the black neighborhood represented cramped and inferior living. In the novel, Aibileen explains the outline of Jackson, Mississippi by stating: “So Jackson's just one white neighborhood after the next …show more content…
One example of difference is the restrooms and bedrooms. The black neighborhood usually has one bathroom for everyone to use. In the white neighborhood there are restrooms for the homeowners, guest, and the help. The restrooms for the help are usually in the garage or in an outhouse. Many White people did not allow people of color to use their bathrooms because they were considered “dirty”. In the novel, Hilly Holbrook tried to explain why the separate bathrooms were a necessity by exclaiming, “All these houses they’re building without maid’s quarters? It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do”(Stockett, 8). In a typical white neighborhoods the houses were typically big and had guest rooms, dining rooms, living rooms. Aibileen and Minny’s house are fairly simple. In Minny’s house the dining room, bedroom, and the kitchen are all in the living
Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South is an award-winning novel written by Melton A. McLaurin that delves into the 1950s era where racism was evident around each corner. McLaurin honestly explores the relationships he had with his fellow white peers as well as the African Americans during his childhood in the southern United States. Throughout the book, McLaurin discussed how segregated the tiny town of Wade was and how the blacks would never be deemed equal to the whites, regardless of their hard work or honesty. I believe that McLaurin adequately proves that Wade was a town divided entirely upon the thoughts of racism and segregation, and how those thoughts affected the people of that time, and how McLurin came to see around those ideas.
The stories that the author told were very insightful to what life was like for an African American living in the south during this time period. First the author pointed out how differently blacks and whites lived. She stated “They owned the whole damn town. The majority of whites had it made in the shade. Living on easy street, they inhabited grand houses ranging from turn-of-the-century clapboards to historics”(pg 35). The blacks in the town didn’t live in these grand homes, they worked in them. Even in today’s time I can drive around, and look at the differences between the living conditions in the areas that are dominated by whites, and the areas that are dominated by blacks. Racial inequalities are still very prevalent In today’s society.
The book The Help was written as a fictional story that showed the lives of three women, two who were colored and the other one who was not. However, even though it was fiction it gave us a realistic view on what it was like to live in the 60’s. This book was about a white women and colored maids coming together to write a book. It also shows that no matter what race, gender or who you are does not matter. We are all equal. There were many conflicts in this book, but the real tremendous one was people versus a
The first major literary feature in this book that creates the story so well is the setting. The Help takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960’s. This was
In an era of the Jim Crow laws, life as an African-American woman was difficult. The Help (2011), a film written and directed by Tate Taylor, brings back some of this history. This film takes place in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi in the time of the civil rights movement, and when racial tension was at a rise. During this time, prejudice was at occurrence. For women who lived in Mississippi during the 1960s, employment opportunities was limited due to permissible segregation and economic inequalities. This film displays some experiences of African-American domestic workers of this period. Interaction with a black person from a white person on a level other than work was frowned upon. Many laws of inequality was forced upon African-Americans.
The setting of the story is Chicago’s South Side. This area of Chicago was known as the “capital of black America” (Manning), and according to Andrew Wiese, Chicago used to be known as “the most segregated city in America” (118). These seriously contradictory statements are true. Chicago’s South Side was home to William L. Dawson, who was the most powerful black politician at the time, and Joe Luis, who was a boxing champion and was known as the most popular black man in America (Manning). It was the most popular place for blacks to migrate to during the Great Migration, and the population grew from 278,000 blacks to 813,000 blacks. Most of the neighborhoods located in the South Side were poor and highly segregated from the rich white neighborhoods located just outside the South Side (Pacyga). The housing in these areas was very poor as well. Most of the African Americans at the time lived in a small apartment called a kitchenette. These were cramped with a small kitchen and small rooms (Plotkin). Lorraine Hansberry describes the Youngers house as a worn out, cramped, and very small apartment (23). She also talks about the small kitchen, living room, and bedrooms (24). These apartments were not ideal, but it was all that many African Americans could afford. If African Americans tried to move nicer neighborhoods, whites would perform violent acts on them (Choldin). This violence was recorded in a African American newspaper, known the Chicago Defender (Best).
Like the story would be hard to follow if it was set in a different time period or even a different part in the world, the reader would be so confused and lost. This story’s setting being in Harlem in the late 1930s makes the reader understand why the black people don’t like the white people. The reader feels pulled into this story as they read it because Hughes really makes you think about what’s going on.
The urban life or a Negro included several types of discrimination and even excluded by some towns entirely. If Negroes were tolerated in Hospitals, jails, and public buildings they were still regularly separated. The city life of African Americans d...
The segregation in the southern states is very prominent during that time period. For instance, Lily’s housekeeper Rosaleen could not live in the same house as Lily, nor could she worship in the same church. Lily finally had enough of her abusive father T.Ray and decided to run away along with their housekeeper Rosaleen who she broke out of jail. The only place she desired to go was the town written on one of her mother’s pictures. On the back of a photograph of a black version of Mary Lily’s mother had written the town Tiburon. Lily and Rosaleen arrive at the outskirts of Tiburon, after a combination of hitchhiking and walking, hungry and tired. As Lily shopped in a convenience store for lunch she noticed a jar of honey with the picture of the same black Mary as her mother’s picture. The store clerk points them in the right direction and they end up at the Botwright's house. As she is conversing with August Botwright Lily notices something peculiar. As she lies on her cot she thinks to herself; “T. Ray did not think colored women were smart. Since I want to tell the whole truth, which means the worst parts, I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white. Lying on the cot in the honey house, though, all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this.” (Kidd.78). Meeting and interacting with August depicts how much involuntary prejudice she had inside of her that she was not previously aware of. Lily used this experience to learn how you can’t judge a person based off their race and made herself rethink her thoughts on African-American people. Lily’s first meeting August contributes to the theme of not judging people based off of prejudice because August disproves Lily’s stereotype that African-Americans couldn’t be as smart as
For this assignment, the movie “The Help” was chosen to review and analyze because it presents a story of fighting injustice through diverse ways. The three main characters of the movie are Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young white woman, Aibileen Clark, and Minny Jackson, two colored maids. Throughout the story, we follow these three women as they are brought together to record colored maids’ stories about their experiences working for the white families of Jackson. The movie explores the social inequalities such as racism and segregation between African Americans and whites during the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.
In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, housing inequality is readily apparent and is vividly described in the description of the “Negro settlement.” Even the fact that the white townspeople call it a settlement makes it clear they do not want it to be part of the town of Maycomb. The inequality goes beyond just the housing, affecting many aspects of how the African Americans are forced to live.
...hool every day, whilst the white school bus goes past and sprays them with red dust. This also shows segregation, whites and blacks had to be as far apart as possible according to the whites. In the novel we see segregation many times: when Big Ma parks the wagon the other side of the field, the different schools and different buses. Taylor does use strong and powerful language through her characters and events to portray the racism. She also had a clear structure, some may find it confusing at times, but overall it does not affect how prejudice is portrayed as events follow each other. I think that the final message of the novel, perhaps, is that survival is possible, but that there are inevitable losses along the way, and that whatever race we are should not matter. Taylor uses memorable characters and big and small events to show prejudice in 1930?s Mississippi.
A narrative of racial segregation between property-owners and tenants has long served as an explanation for the isolation of African-Americans in certain neighborhoods in large cities. For centuries, many Americans subscribed to the view that blacks were of a permanently inferior in nature (Franklin, 1). As slavery came to be concentrated in the southern states, it builds its defenses of the institution along the lines of the inferiority of the Negro. According to John, the whole body of thought was set to demonstrate that the faculties of the black man, as compared to those of the white, made
“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett is a story that takes you through the ups and downs of living in Jackson, Mississippi in the 60’s. With the bravery of these 3 brave women they were able to write and release a book about being the help. The help. While there were small repercussions in the end, Jackson, Mississippi saw a change for the better after the book was released.
Sexism is still commonly found all over the world. What was sexism like back in the