Book Note | The Help | A Novel by Kathryn Stockett
A White woman in the deep South when Jim Crow is rampant interviews Black maids in order to compile a book that will bring the maids' stories to the attention of the larger world. This sounds like a noble goal.
BUT, in this novel, in spite of its purported high minded purpose, the White woman is self-centered, dishonest, and risks nothing she cares about while the Black women she pulls into her project risk everything.
The proof is in the pudding: when the book about the maids' lives is finally published, making life dangerous for everyone in Jackson who had a hand in it, the White woman who organized the project skips off for the new publishing job the book has won for her in New York! While the maids are left in Jackson with their safety compromised and — reality's sharp edge — living within blocks of Medgar Evers' recent assassination. A few $100's may or may not be coming their way.
Stockett sets the novel in Jackson, Mississippi in the early '60's when the Civil Rights movement is in its early years, and racial tensions are high. Skeeter, the narrator, is an upper class White woman who just graduated from college and wants to be a writer, though her conventional mother just wants her to get married. Encouraged by a note of interest she's gotten from an editor in New York City whom she asked for a job, Skeeter interviews the local Black maids for a book that will tell their stories to the world at large.
The Help, consists of the maids' accounts of their lives, seen through Skeeter's eyes, with the quest to publish the book against all obstacles the overall narrative arc. Black maids raise the White women's children, cook their food and clean their houses while Whites, to avoid the maids' germs, build them separate bathrooms outside the house. There are horrific accounts of Blacks losing their jobs and being beaten and maimed by arbitrary actions of Whites driven by hate and fear. The setting of the story a few blocks from Evers' murder underlines the true risk the maids take on for agreeing to speak into Skeeter's recorder, or even for allowing themselves to be seen talking with her in other than a mistress/servant relationship.
Stockett gives lots of details about her characters' lives but oversimplifies their personalities. The Black maids are noble, generous of spirit and well read, for example, while the White mistresses are all venial, sadistic and pathetic.
But the major flaw in the novel is that Skeeter's actions are at odds with the halo the author provides for her. Skeeter, as we see her dragging these stories out of these fearful and understandably reluctant women, is self-centered and duplicitous. Her dishonesty is presented as a necessary evil, to get the maids' stories written and out into the world in the embattled, repressive context of Jackson. But I wouldn't trust her, nor should the maids. She sounds high-minded but she exploits them as much as the other White women do.
There's interesting material in the book, like about those bathrooms, and parts of it read like good gossip. But the scraps of inside stuff don't make up for the fact that the book is as duplicitous and exploitive as its narrator. A White woman gets Black women to talk about themselves under the guise of "doing good" and publishes a book about it that advances her career and leaves them in the lurch. How distasteful. (Yes, I know it's a bestseller).
Kathryn StockettnovelThe Help
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Yvonne Korshak
I agree completely with you about how important it is to take perspective into consideration. But my problem with the book isn't that the portrayal of Blacks and Whites is stereotypical. The heroine comes across as "doing good" by bringing the stories of the maids to broader attention — yet, in terms of what actually happens, what she does on any practical level isn't good for the characters we meet in the book who tell their stories to her, only good for herself. I think it's incredibly ironic that, though she's supposedly all about good intentions, in the story as… Read more »
We northerners may criticize Stockett for her stereotypical portrayal of blacks and whites. However, I saw a You Tube video of Katie Couric's interview with the author, during which she said that members of her own family no longer spoke to her after the book was published.
I don't think you can understand these relationships if you're not from the south. Just when I think I understand it – from personal observations – I find more confusion.
I do think Stockett's a good storyteller, and that the characters were well-drawn.
Alice Howard
A number of people I know who grew up in the deep south say the portrayal is exacrly how it was. And although I have no personal experience with this, I have the sense that there is a lot of truth in the book about the relationships, treatment, etc. And I actually found it a compelling read. However, refelecting upon it afterwards, I tended to agree with what Yvonne and Barbara are saying: the maids are idealized; the whites are stereotyed; and Skeeter (or the author, if you will) is self-serving. And furthermore, I think the plot is not believable.… Read more »
Maybe some people like it because it makes them feel good, sophisticated, virtuous, to think they're looking at or learning about rough aspects of reality when they're getting a grossly watered down version, complete with some fun juicy gossip. The sugar pill effect. Others may like it because it's fundamentally a racist book but cloaked in seemingly politically correct attitudes so it's OK to like it — in fact, puts you in the class of those reading "best sellers".
barbara eisold
I thought your review was very good, Yvonne. I also found myself ANGRY that book's author seemed to ignore the fear that people felt during those years when Medgar Evers was asssasinated and the 3 kids ( one of whom, Andrew Goodman, graduated from a school I attended for 5 years) were first disappeared and then found dead, murdered by racists. And so many people went to the South during that period, in spite of fear. Why do you think she was so out to lunch on this topic???? Maybe too young to know that kind of fear??? Makes the… Read more »