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Ain Shams University

Faculty of Al Alsun

Department of English

A Research in

Anger in Kathryn Stockett's The Help

Submitted by: Doha Al-Sayed Mohamed

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Outline

I. Introduction:

Anger is a very powerful word, which many people would refuse to accept. Anger, to
some people, may lead to disasters or troubles. Accordingly, no one could have ever
thought that people may use the powerful energy of anger to reach the impossible.

 Thesis statement:

This research paper is discussing how racism is the mother of all sins and
how anger can be its cure.

II. Body:

Characters:

1) Aibileen:

She is one of the protagonists of the novel. She has a developing character, and her
character is parallel to Martin Luther King's character. She has a dream; her dream is
to raise a generation of color-blind young children who judge people by the content o
their character not by skin color.

2) Miss Skeeter:

She is the white protagonist of the novel. She, somehow, represents a part of the
author, Kathryn Stockett, as both of them refuse the unjust and unfair treatment that
the African-American maids get. She is the white rebel. She is also the author's
mouthpiece.

3) Minny:

She is also one of the protagonists of the novel. She first waited for Miss Walters, and
then she waited for Miss Celia, in secret. She has a very strong and powerful
character. She also, in various ways, resembles Martin Luther King. Her life has
tremendously changed when she was hired at Miss Celia's residence.

4) Miss Hilly:
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Miss Hilly is the antagonist who hates "the colored help", and works on a project to
pass a bill that makes it obligatory for all white houses to have a separate bathroom
for "the colored help".

Themes:

1) Anger:

Examining how racism and other surrounding environment affect all the characters.
Most of the characters in The Help are angry of something, or of someone.

2) Racism:

The white people do not only hate "the colored help", but also hate those who are
poorer than them. They are racists on all scales.

Technique

1) Language:

Stockett uses different forms of language to indicate the difference in education of the
characters..

2) Narration:

She also used first person narration to make the characters speak for themselves

1) Chronological order and Irony:

Stockett uses chronological order to narrate the events, mingled with flashbacks to
summon some events that will be helpful for the coming events. She resorts to irony
in very limited situations, in order not to make her story horrifying.

2) Symbolism:

The book that the maids wrote symbolizes the revolution of the 1960s.

3) Well-made plot:

The Help has a well-made plot, to make it as realistic as possible.

III.Conclusion:
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After analyzing the characters, and the main dominating themes, one can see why
Martin Luther King had a "dream" that "One day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice". One can clearly understand that
anger does not always have to be destructive; it can be instructive. All the successful
revolutions in history resulted from anger. Eventually, it is up to the person to decide
whether to make his/her anger destructive, or instructive, and whether to make the
world a better place, or to make it worse.

A Research in Anger in Kathryn Stockett's The Help

Anger is a powerful word and emotion that many people refuse to accept.
"While the manifestations of anger can be problematic…" (Crump), no one could
have ever thought that it has a constructive side. Aristotle said that anyone can be
angry, but few who can "… be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the
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right time, for the right purpose and in the right way". For centuries, anger has been
considered "… a sin, a weakness, or a madness and was to be avoided or contained"
(qtd. in Crump). Crump also maintains that anger can be considered a messenger: a
messenger that alerts people or provides them with a clue that something is going
wrong. All people, from different classes, and different origins, can benefit from
anger. They can use it as their teacher, who guides them to the right path. This
research paper will discuss how racism is the mother of all sins, and how anger can be
its cure.

Structural racism is considered the most profound form of racism. Joe R.

Feagin emphasizes that many millions of white Americans have been involved,
individually or collectively, in the exploitation and oppression of African-Americans.
Both Keith Lawrence and Terry Keleher defined "Structural Racism" as:

The normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics historical,

cultural, institutional and interpersonal- that routinely advantage whites while
producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.

In dealing with this racism, people need the beneficial, constructive anger. Globally,
scholars have found that anger can "spur an entire culture to change for the better"
(DeAngelis 45), as witnessed by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In fact,
recent studies have shown that "anger seems to be followed by aggression only about
10 percent of the time and lots of aggression occurs without any anger" (DeAngelis
44). Thus, in paraphrasing Malcolm x, DeAngelis maintains that there is always a
time and a place for anger, when nothing else will do. So, Anger is not always a
source of aggression.

The Help serves as an application of the beneficial force of anger. It is a novel

written by the American novelist Kathryn Stockett. Stockett has written about her
origins, saying that she is from Jackson, Mississippi, and that she moved from
Jackson, to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing before
publishing her debut novel. For Stockett, writing this book was a sort of
immortalizing a part of her life. While writing it, Stockett, herself, said that she was
scared because she is writing about a very sensitive subject for most Americans and
especially for a writer/person from the South. She challenged some basic concepts
that she was raised to follow. She was taught "… not to talk about such uncomfortable
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things". In the novel, Stockett tries to express the anger of the "colored help"; she tries
to portray how they felt, though she admits that no white woman can pretend to
understand the feelings of African-American maids at that time. She tries, anyway, to
convey this message and she has succeeded in delivering it. The Help also represents
Stockett's anger at the American society at the 1960s.

It is a novel that gets into a world of segregation, and social injustices. The
author tries to examine the relationship between a black person and a white one in the
unequal world of segregation fairly and as it truly was. She also tries to draw lines of
the structural racism that the African-Americans have witnessed at the 1960s. Carol
Dwankowski mentions that Stockett has given voices to females only because she has
felt that such kind of literature has been produced and expressed by males, and it has
never been produced from a feminine point of view. As per the critic Amy Sharps, in
her review of the novel in The Guardian, she argues that Stockett managed to "merge
fact and fiction perfectly, exploring different emotions ranging from sadness to
happiness" going through rage and anger.

Stockett tries as much as she can to portray and represent the characters and
their lives as they really were at that period of time. She uses Jackson, Mississippi as
the setting of the events because it is the place she knows best and because she has
lived there and has experienced a part of the incidents she wrote about.

It seems that the protagonists of the novel have used the constructive side of anger.
They have also directed their anger at the "right person" and have achieved what
Abraham Lincoln once called for: equality and ending slavery. Their anger was their
motive to liberty, equality and revolution.

The Help is about three women; "young eccentric, White woman, Eugenia
Phelan, and two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, speak out against
inequality, institutionalized racism, cruelty, and the lack of human rights:
(Dwankowski 1). Eugenia Phelan- Miss Skeeter- is an ambitious young woman who
aspires to be a writer in a society that thinks that the only place for a woman is at
home raising her children, and satisfying her husband's needs. Aibileen Clark is a
maid who has lost her son because of racism, and is working for The Leefolt's. She is
not like any other maid; she is different. She has a big heart, and loves all people-
white or colored. She raises white children, but always "moves on to another job
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when the babies get too old and stop being color-blind" (Stockett 128). Aibileen's
"anger [is] in the heart" (Potegal and Novaco 12). Minny Jackson is a maid who has
been "fired nineteen times in the same small town!" (Stockett 367). She is the best
cook in Jackson, Mississippi; her "cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue"
(Stockett). All of the three women, with other maids, work together in writing a book
about what it means to be a "colored help" in Jackson. The Help is about "what it [is]
like trying to keep the anger inside, but never succeeding" (Stockett 367).

There are certain things in life that reveal the role of anger. "Stories, myths,
and religious beliefs reveal the powerful role that anger has played in human affairs
since the beginning of recorded history" (Potegal and Novaco 9). In The Help,
Stockett asserts that "the damage done to African-Americans did not end with slavery,
but persisted for another one hundred years in the form of legal segregation…"
(Feagin 53). The author did not write this novel just to defend one side and show the
misery that it has faced in the 1960s; she wrote it as an expression of her gratitude to
the African-American maid who raised her, Demetrie. The character of Miss Skeeter
resembles the author herself, and her maid, Demetrie, is present in all the maids in the
novel, especially Aibileen and Constantine. Therefore, it is clear that Stockett was
really writing about herself.

One of the main characters in The Help is Aibileen. She is a black maid,
raising her seventeenth white child, while she has lost her own son at the hands of
white people; it became like a "bitter seed" (Stockett 3) that was planted in her heart.
Each and every child she raises is, to her, one of her own. She loves those little
children, but what really breaks her heart is that when they grow up, they "turn out
just like [their] mamas" (Stockett 128). Moreover, the irony is that both sides love
each other and yet the white employer later on does not "even allow them to use the
toilet in the house" (Stockett 106). That is why Aibileen "moves on to another job
when the babies get too old and stop being color-blind" (Stockett 128). She is raising
The Leefolt's daughter, Mae Mobley. Aibileen, in that house, is always angry at Miss
Elizabeth for not caring enough about her own daughter. Miss Elizabeth also abuses
her daughter by beating or shouting at her. Readers find Aibileen in the middle of all
that shouting and beating trying "to keep [her] mad inside" (Stockett 15).
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Aibileen's anger is mastered by "reason, will, and self-control" (Potegal and

Novaco 15). Her refusal at the beginning to work with Miss Skeeter was because of
"fear of social and/or physical reprisal" (Potegal and Novaco 12). She was afraid of
the consequences; she was not aware of what the book might actually achieve. She
was terrified of meeting the same fate of her son who was beaten to death, or the fate
of Robert, Louvenia's grandson, who was also beaten and was blinded as a result. She
feared facing the same fate of the man who was found "cattle-branded and hung from
a pecan tree" (Stockett 239), for saying that the Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi is "a
pathetic man with the morals of a street walker" (Stockett 239). That man has been
brutally murdered "for speaking out, for talking". Aibileen's approval later was a
reaction to Miss Hilly's Initiative, which "requires every White home to have a
separate bathroom for the colored help" (Stockett 9). She has used her "anger as a
motivator of just actions" (Potegal and Novaco 14). She has agreed to be a part of that
book project to stand in the face of all the White people who are like Miss Hilly.

Besides Aibileen's "righteous anger" (Potegal and Novaco 19), she is brave.
She has gained this bravery from her realization that there is no dividing line between
African-Americans and White-Americans. For so long, she and other African-
Americans have believed in the existence of that line, and they were terrified of
crossing it. She later realized that it is made up by some white people who are "always
trying to make [them] believe" (Stockett 312) in this imaginary line because their aim
was to control the African-Americans. The awareness of this fact has enabled
Aibileen to comprehend that: "Shame [is] not black, like dirt… Shame [is] the color
of a new white uniform…, white without a smudge or speck [of] work-dirt on it"
(Stockett 151). Thus, she was finally able to stand in the face of all the racist people.

Aibileen's character is parallel to the character of Martin Luther King, the

leader. She also had a dream; her dream is to raise a generation of young children who
are "color-blind". Her dream is to bring up children who will not judge others "by the
color of their skin, but by the content of their character" (King). Aibileen has a
developing character; the Aibileen who has started the novel is not the same Aibileen
who has finished it. Readers can obviously see that she has changed and has become a
better person. This development is a result of getting anger out of her chest; she has
finally had the chance to criticize those who have been criticizing her for so long.
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Aibileen's character also represents the character of any African-American

who has suffered a lot, and has commingled his/her justified anger with justice itself
(Potegal and Novaco 18). She was silent at first with Miss Hilly's insults to her, but
later she has stood up to Miss Hilly's actions, peacefully, with the act of helping Miss
Skeeter and writing that book about her humiliation and the maltreatment she received
from the White people. Aibileen's "No" has come out at last in the face of Miss Hilly
as a threat. Aibileen's end gives hope to the oppressed and the tyrannized. It gives
people hope that one day justice will prevail and oppression will end. Aibileen's final
words have given people that hope, as she said:

I'm free, like Minny. Freer than Miss Leefolt, who so locked up in her own
head she don't even recognize herself when she read [the book]. And freer
than Miss Hilly. That woman gone spend the rest of her life trying to
convince people she didn't eat that pie… Miss Hilly, she in her own jail, but
with a lifelong term. (sic) (Stockett 444)

These words exemplify the true, forgiving nature of the African-Americans. These
words also represent how they saw segregation at the 1960s.

Eugenia Phelan, or better known as Miss Skeeter, is a girl who is "tall and
skinny. Her hair [is] yellowed cut short above her shoulders… She [is] twenty-three
or so…" (Stockett 4). Skeeter is a white normal girl, who is by the standards of her
society not beautiful. She is smarter than most girls her age. She studied hard at the
time her friends "were out drinking rum and cokes" (Stockett 58), in an attempt to
search for a husband. She is an ambitious girl who wants to be a writer, but is afraid
of telling her mother because her mother would "only turn it into… another thing that
separates [her daughter] from the married girls" (Stockett 56). She sees that her
society is one of discrimination, stereotyping and segregation. She clearly sees the
dividing line between the African-Americans and the White-Americans, yet she
decided to cross it and to destroy the polarity of her society. Skeeter's use of
discriminatory and racist diction, as the use of "Negro", "colored person", and
describing an African-American saying "black as night", is a result of her ignorance
because she does not know any other diction. This is also a result of the
discriminatory society she lives in.
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Miss Sketter is part and parcel of the author's, Kathryn Stockett, character. The
Skeeter/Stockett resemblance shows the author's attachment to the novel. They are,
somehow, the same. Miss Skeeter is also the mouthpiece of the author. She expresses
the author's point o view on certain subjects. Skeeter whose "real dream was that one
day [she] would write something people would actually read" (Stockett 59); Stockett
actually wrote a book that became America's bestseller. So, Miss Skeeter represents
Stockett's past. Both of them moved to New York City from the small town of
Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter wanted to "break new ground" (Stockett 103); she
wanted to show "the point of the help" (Stockett 105), while Stockett was afraid that
she would be "crossing a terrible line" (Stockett 450) and that she will never be able
to express what it feels like "to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the
1960s" (Stockett 451). So, in spite of their differences, it is clear that Stockett has
been writing about herself and about her past.

Skeeter's character is down to earth, realistic; especially that she is the author's
mouthpiece. The critic Duchess Harris, in her article "Kathryn Stockett is Not My
Sister and I Am Not Her Help", argues that Stockett compels readers to have
"empathy" for Miss Skeeter. It is not an imposed "empathy"; it is just that Skeeter
seems to be the girl who takes advantage of the impoverished. Miss Skeeter concludes
that in Jackson "[every] one is asleep… in every way possible" (Stockett 351). She
defied her society's norms and tackled a subject that is uncomfortable for most
Americans.

Minny is the third protagonist in The Help. She is the girl who knows "how to
stand up to people" (Stockett 39). She is the maddest and angriest one of all the
characters. Minny is "every Southern white woman's nightmare" (Stockett 386). In his
review of the novel, Toby Clements maintains the author managed to combine
tragedy with comedy in one character. Everything that concerns Minny is tragic, but
presented in a comic way. Her stories carried humiliation and expressed shame and
yet they were narrated in a very funny way. Minny's life is hard and full of troubles
with five children and a husband who abuses her. She once "had that big bruise on her
arm [because] that [is] what Leroy does when he [comes] home… He pushes her
around" (Stockett 183). This disastrous, impoverished lifestyle has contributed in
making her the angriest and maddest character in the novel.
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Minny is very strong. That is why everybody "[likes] to listen to [her]"

(Stockett 13). Minny does not say "Yes, ma'am" to any and every thing. She does
what suits and pleases her, and that is the main reason for losing her jobs. She resists
and never compels to anything that would hurt anyone she loves. However, she never
thought of leaving her husband because of her children. She did not want to make
them homeless; especially that she never keeps a job. No one ever thought that Leroy
was abusing her because everybody knows that "big strong Minny… sure can stand
up for herself" (Stockett 413). She has a self-sacrificing character. She did not want to
ruin her children's lives by divorcing Leroy. She also wanted to protect all the maids
who were a part of the book project, so she put the story of the pie. Minny's
developing character shows her strength. She was finally able to leave her husband,
and "stand up for herself" (Stockett 413).

Minny's relationship with her employer Celia Foote is totally different from
any other relationship she had with any other employer. Minny can "sass" Miss Celia
directly and in front of her face. Minny's bad "history with white ladies" (Stockett
163) has ended with her job with Miss Celia. Minny has often convinced herself that
she does not care about Miss Celia, but then she finds herself doing something that
shows the exact opposite. This different relationship, which is not based on racism or
discrimination, represents the future that America must witness. In other words,
Stockett used this normal relationship that is not based on racism as a means to tell
her readers that it is not so hard to be normal, and to deal with people on the basis of
their character not their skin color. Her "furiousness at white people" (Stockett 166)
has shown when she took revenge from Miss Hilly for firing her from Miss Walters'
residence. Minny has made a pie for Miss Hilly that had a special ingredient, which is
"Minny's shit" (Stockett 339). This act shows Minny's anger at Hilly and also shows
Minny's strength. She approved of telling her story not to change any laws or
regulations, but because all she cares about is "if in ten years, a white lady will call
[her] girls dirty and accuse[s] them of stealing the silver" (Stockett 218). She was
turned into this furious, angry person because "rejection and insult trigger anger,
which motivates indirect aggression" (Potegal and Novaco 13). Minny is also brave,
like Aibileen.

Stockett symbolizes in Minny a social class of fearless women and has made
her a role model for other women to follow. Minny finally woke up, and defied her
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society; she has finally recognized that the best of her has not shown up yet. She has
realized that her society and her husband do not "know what Minny Jackson [is] about
to become" (Stockett 439). In her, there lies great power. She sacrificed herself to
protect the other maids and her own children. In the background, one feels that there
is also a part of Martin Luther King's character present in Minny. She has a self-
sacrificing character, just like that of Martin Luther King's.

Readers feel that there are parts of Luther King present in Aibileen and Minny.
They are the female equivalents of his character. They are strong and brave, just like
him. Readers get the feeling that the author was inspired by Mr. King and the Civil
Rights Movement. The character of Miss Skeeter is also a representation of the other
White-Americans who cooperated with Mr. King to end social segregation and social
inequality. Thus, one gets the feeling that the Civil Rights Movement is always in the
background of The Help.

Another important character is Miss Hilly. She is the antagonist of the novel.
The critic Duchess Harris states that Hilly represents the normal, fanatic White person
who was raised to hate black people, just because they are different. Hilly is "one of
those grown ladies [who] still dress like a little girl with big bows and matching hats"
(Stockett 5). Her hatred towards the help went so far that she wanted to pass a bill
"that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help"
(Stockett 9); she called it the "Home Help Sanitation Initiative" (Stockett 8). Her only
excuse was that blacks "carry different kinds of diseases than [whites] do" (Stockett
8). To Miss Hilly, each and every "colored help" is just another jail key on her belt.
She does not think of them as human beings with feelings. She is imprisoned in "her
own jail… with a lifelong term" (Stockett 444).

Being the antagonist makes Hilly the person who pushes the events. In other
words, as Amy Sharps states it, Hilly's actions were the main reason for the maids'
approval to join the book project. Aibileen's approval came after Miss Hilly's
insistence on her friend, Miss Elizabeth, to build a separate bathroom for Aibileen.
When Minny saw Hilly's "Home Help Sanitation Initiative", she did not hesitate for a
second and immediately agreed to join in the book project. Also, Hilly's act of
sending her maid Yule May to prison was the main factor that made other maids join
Miss Skeeter and Aibileen, and approved of narrating their stories too. She is the only
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character that pushes the events, and without her there would have been no book
telling what it feels like to be a black maid in Jackson. She also represents all the
fanatic white people who hold grudge against African-Americans and think of them as
dehumanized objects. Stockett referred to her, and all the white ladies who are like
her, as the white lady who never forgets (Stockett 188). She is hypocritical; she is
having a fund-raising session to the "Poor Starving Children of Africa" (Stockett
174), while she hates and despises those who live in the same town with her.

Anger is the strongest of all spirited emotions. It is an emotion just like any
other, but the difference is that it can work as a "motivator of just action[s]" (Potegal
and Novaco 14). This idea led to the emergence of "justified anger" (Potegal and
Novaco 10). This "justified anger" in The Help is the direct result of racism, rejection,
discrimination, and segregation; opposed to the unjustified anger of Miss Hilly and
Miss Elizabeth, who were angry at those who did not look like them. Their anger was
"directed against outsiders, social deviates, and 'others'" (Potegal and Novaco 20).
Readers clearly see that Miss Hilly's anger is directed all the time at the help; the
"outsiders… others" as she thinks. There is also Miss Elizabeth who keeps "frowning"
(Stockett 1). She is frowning because of her anger at her daughter who is different,
"social deviate". She thinks that her daughter is not perfect as Hilly's daughter.
Eventually, Stockett is trying to say that caring so much about appearances gets
people nowhere, and that is the wrong kind of anger. The anger that the author wants
her readers to follow is the righteous, constructive anger, that of the African-
Americans.

All the main protagonists suffered either from racism, segregation, or

discrimination. For example, Aibileen, Minny and other African-American maids
suffered from both racism and segregation for their skin color; they have been thought
to "have smaller brains and thus are less intelligent" (Thompson 6). Consequently,
from the whites' point of view, "it was in the best interest of blacks to be enslaved"
(qtd. in Thompson 5). Segregation laws have also given white people the right to
abuse their servants. Racism rooted in the minds of whites that African-Americans
"need to be watched over and cared for by whites because that is what is best for
them" (Thompson 3). It was also thought that "savage people, such as Africans, were
inferior and were put on earth to serve the superior [Whites]" (qtd. in Thompson 4).
As if their only mission is to make the life of white people easier.
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Other white characters also suffered from discrimination, like Miss Skeeter
and Miss Celia, for being different. Miss Skeeter was different in her looks, and was
smarter than the rest of her friends. She suffered from discrimination for being better
that the rest of the group. For that reason, she was also angry at those who maltreated
her. She wrote the book so as to take revenge from those who thought of her as an
inferior, not an equal. On the other hand, Miss Celia did not experience discrimination
for being smarter, but for being poorer. All the so-called "society-ladies" refused
talking to or dealing with a poor girl from "Sugar Ditch". Thus, Lawrence and
Keleher conclude that blacks were not the only victims of discriminations; whites also
who were different were as well.

Revolutions result from discrimination. Stress, anger, and rage created by the
discriminatory practices and prejudices of everyday racism lead to revolutions (Feagin
57). So, in The Help, Stockett employed some revolutionary acts by the oppressed or
maltreated characters to indicate the beginning of oppression's closure. In other
words, all the developing characters in the novel have done something that repaid
them for all the oppression and maltreatment they have faced. These actions are
according to the protagonists' standards are very bold and revolutionary. Their anger
was directed against "the right person, on the right occasion, in the right manner" (qtd.
in Potegal and Novaco 18). On a bigger scale, these small revolutionary acts by the
protagonists are the direct equivalent to Rosa Parks' "No" and Martin Luther King's "I
Have a Dream". These incidents are what led to a big revolution that ended
segregation and guaranteed equality to all races because they believed that "the idea
of justified anger becomes commingled with, if not equivalent to, justice itself"
(Potegal and Novaco 18). Thus, the justified anger of the African-Americans and all
the acts that resulted from this anger, somehow, cured racism and ended segregation.

These people were angry because of their desire to change, and the desire of
the others not to change. Amanda Thompson argues that this tension between the
Whites and the African-Americans led to the anger of both sides. African-Americans
wanted to improve their lives, while White-Americans were fighting this change. The
Whites wanted their stable lives to remain thus, not noticing the hardships faced by
African-Americans on daily basis. Jim Crow, the "unwritten social expectations"
(Lawrence and Keleher 7), and other cultural codes were all adding fuel to the
African-Americans' anger. Their anger is a representation of Abraham Lincoln's anger
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"at slave owners" (qtd. in Potegal and Novaco 19). Both Lincoln's anger and the
African-Americans' anger are constructive, positive anger.

The 1960s made all the difference in the African-Americans' lives. "By the
1960s, the media had made apparent to all Blacks the difference between their quality
of life and that of the [Whites]" (Cantarella 21). In other words, at the time Miss
Elizabeth was searching for a spot to build a separate bathroom for Aibileen, Aibileen
was trying so hard to pay all her bills and to save money to buy food to eat. This
luxurious life style of Miss Elizabeth and other whites and the poor life style of the
"colored help" was one of the main reasons for the anger of African-Americans. This
was simply unfair, that one side had it all and the other had nothing at all. In addition,
racist comments and treatment added fuel to their anger.

The thought of the "colored help" as "dirty" and "diseased" is nothing but pure
structural racism. The "Home Help Sanitation Initiative" is also another form of this
structural racism. When speaking, African-Americans were expected to address the
whites as "Mr.", "Sir", or "Ma'am". Dehumanizing the help and maltreating them are
within the frame of structural racism. For example, Elizabeth thinks of Aibileen as
one of her objects and referred to her once as "My Aibileen" (Stockett 78). The Jim
Crow laws that prohibit any person of color to use the same bathroom that a white
person uses, and the Jim Crow Article that also prohibits the exchange of books
between the white and the black schools, and states that books "shall continue to be
used by the race first using them" (Stockett 173). These absurd laws have paved the
way for more oppression on the African-Americans. The "Separate but equal"
principle was in reality "Separate and inferior": all the services provided for people of
color were inferior to those provided for the whites. These are all factors that
contributed in making the lives of Black Americans worse, while they "made up 10%
of the population, [they] were 36% of the impoverished" (Cantarella 22). Even the
very first attempts to include and reflect the reality of the Black people were all failed
attempts, as in Gone With the Wind that made slavery looks like "a big happy tea
party" (Stockett 50). All of these factors were forming structural racists and were
negatively influencing the African-Americans.

In The Help, Kathryn Stockett used language as an indicator of the characters'

social class, and their level of education. Aibileen did not finish her education, so
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readers find her using a very colloquial language with "em" instead of "them", and
verbs conjugated in a wrong way, as in "it weren't too long before I seen something in
me had change" (Stockett 3). On the other hand, Minny- who had better education
than Aibileen- uses language in a slightly more correct way than Aibileen, as in "I've
never had the choice before" (Stockett 35), and other examples also manifest the
difference between her and Aibileen's level of education. Though she does not keep
on the same track, her language is- as said before- slightly better than most of the
other maids. Because she also could not finish her education, readers find her making
mistakes, as in "Don't you go sassing this white lady like you done the other"
(Stockett 31). This style of language use became associated with African-Americans
and whoever spoke this way was directly identified as a poor person, or a person who
is Black.

This employment of different levels of language shows the difference

between the help and her employer; it is considered as another form of racism. After
all, there is no educated white woman who would ever use such forms of language as
of the help. The "better" educated white ladies use "better" language. Stockett is very
clever in employing language as a major difference between social classes of the
characters. Language use and forms have a paramount importance in drawing
comparisons between characters in the novel. This gave Stockett an opportunity to
make her novel as realistic as possible because different people use language
differently.

Stockett uses first person narration mingled with third person narration
technique to express the opinions of those who do not have their own narrative voice.
The use of the first person narration shows Stockett's attachment to the novel. The
part that used third person narration from the beginning till its end is chapter 25, the
chapter of "The Benefit". In "The Benefit", Stockett wanted to give the readers a full
view on the event. She did not want to personalize, or to give it the narrative voice of
one of the protagonists. In this chapter, the reader sees all the characters for the first
time in the same place and at the same time. The use of the first person narration
would have given readers an intimate relationship with the protagonist that is
narrating it; it rather gives them a whole and complete view of the events. In doing so,
Stockett puts further emphasis on the marginalization of the African-American
characters, the colored help.
 17

Stockett also utilized chronological order in narrating the events mingled of

course with flashbacks and used irony. The chronological order is meant to give
credibility to the story and to make readers live day by day with the protagonists. The
flashbacks are also used when the characters narrate events from the past to make
readers more acquainted with them, and to understand the characters' background. In
his review of The Help in The Telegraph, Toby Clements argued that Stockett built up
her novel using layers of "irony to excavate when [she] describes the lives of the
society women of Jackson". She also blends rage and humor together to make her
novel horrifying, and yet so funny. The funniest character is Minny. She provides
readers with a sense of humor, while narrating her story as not to make the whole
book a horrifying sad story. Stockett is very clever in employing chronological order
in narration and irony in The Help.

The book that the protagonists are co-writing together symbolizes their
resistance; their resistance to social inequality and injustices that they face daily. The
book is also a symbol of the revolution of the African-Americans led by Martin
Luther King. It is a symbol of the maids' simple "No" to all the laws of segregation.
This revolution, symbolized in the book, is the main reason for people like Operah
Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Serena Williams, and Barack Obama to be influential,
public figures. This "No" made Aibileen's and Minny's dream comes true.

The Help has a well-made plot. Readers are exposed to the first female
protagonist, Aibileen, and she introduced most of the other characters in the novel.
Then, readers find the rising action coming with Miss Skeeter's question to Aibileen
of whether she has the desire to change things. Afterwards, the novel reaches its
climax when Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter are all waiting for people's reaction to the
book. Soon after, all the protagonists' problems come to an end. Skeeter has the job
offer in New York City; Aibileen has the Miss Myrna job, and Minny has decided to
leave her husband, Leroy. Actually readers never see the protagonists carrying on
their plans, they only read their words, but do not see them actually carrying their
plans. That open-ending of the novel is a message in itself. The author ended her story
with Aibileen coming out of Miss Elizabeth's house thinking that Miss Elizabeth and
Miss Hilly are the ones who are imprisoned. This gives readers hope that one day
oppression will come to an end, and that they will live a bright, and just life free of
any sort of racism.
 18

One of the essential emotions in the human nature is anger. Thus, in The Help,
readers find it a central consequence of structural racism. African-Americans have
been subjected to structural racial discrimination for one of the longest periods in the
entire history of the human race. The era of black enslavement was not proceeded by
a period of justice, and equality, but rather the exact opposite. It was followed by
segregation and Jim Crow laws. Structural racism, stereotyping, and discrimination
create discomfort and inner conflicts. Consequently, the African-American maids of
The Help worked side-by-side with Miss Skeeter to face these stereotypes and
structural racism. They were able to prove that they do not lack ambition. They also
proved that they are not inferior and that they have their own ambitions and their own
aspirations.

Nowadays, African-Americans are still subjected to stereotypical frames.

Movies assign to them the image of a gangster, a rapper, or a combination of both. So,
by time and in front of these stereotypical images that are rooted in the minds of
others, the African-American cannot avoid them and becomes the living incarnation
of these stereotypical images, which is another form of structural racism. They are not
viewed as unique individuals filled with aspirations and desires, but rather as a
massive group with similar characteristics that are always skewed to the negative.
Even when White-Americans see successful African-American models, they
automatically assume that these models are the exception, not the rule.

The author's message is that it does not really matter the other's skin color, or
their social status. What really matters is how the other treats people. She says
throughout the pages of The Help that human relationships make all the difference;
they are what really matters. Evidently, structural racism has been costly in
deconstructing much vital human energy that could have been used in building up a
better society. Eventually, The Help makes readers understand that the right kind of
anger can be appropriate, virtuous and ethically justified. Through the novel, readers
also understand that people should be judged by their characters, not by their skin
color. The Help emphasizes the importance and role of constructive anger. The Help
proves that anger is the cure to all kinds of racism.
 19

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 20

DeAngelis, Tori. "When Anger Is a Plus." apa.org. 44-5. Mar. 2003. Web. 16
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