In the End...

After finishing the help, it's hard not to look back and think about how many of the things that happened in the help still take place in today's society. It's just crazy! For example: when my mother was pregnant with my little sister and we were going through names, my mom really liked the name Nia. My step dad quickly said, "no that's to black  sounding." My reaction was basically "what did you just say/ what the hell does that mean." He started talking about how he doesn't want people thinking that she is black when they are reading her name or reading her job applications because they will often be biased against her. Sometimes it won't even be a conscience emotion that they feel but because she is black they will sometimes think of them as unqualified. I thought that this was crazy. Now reading the help I see just how much is affected by your race. Almost all African American women were maids because that was the only job they were able to get because that is the only job that they are qualified for. What I really loved about this fact is that it was proved completely wrong! These black women that most of society perceived to be less intellectually advanced than white folk wrote this amazing book, a best seller in fact and showed all of the monstrosities of "the system." My favorite part of the book was when miss hilly went over to abileen's work and was the back bone of telling her that she was fired and Abi really pointed out the fact an almost complete power swap. These women were able to control what they did as an occupation, where they went to the bathroom, their pay ect. But they could not control them from writing and revealing everything that has happened and the reactions of the women, how mortified they were! Priceless. 

Eve Small

I really like how the help is written. She depicts all of the characters in the book and their own unique personality very well. I think that the help plays into a lot of the questions about the American dream and how race, gender and social class play into your power and how others treat you.
      When then book starts you get to see how the maids are treated by there employers, the employers friends and the child that they are taking care of. The employers are usually much nicer to the help when their friends are not around and I think that plays into the race aspect because they want to put up a front for society in which the help is lower class and less important than whites which means you treat them so. The employers friends treat them with little respect because they do not know them on a personal level to the extent that the employer does so they treat them with a very cold attitude.  The children though are definitely the most interesting. On the one hand the children are very sweet and treat them as their equal. They love them and feel safe and comfortable with them and it doesn't seem as though that will change. On the other hand, as stated in the book; the children treat them right now and love them but as they grow up it will change because they see how others around them treat the help and so they too conform to society.  This I think is the most powerful thing, them maids saying that the children who they raised and loved and who loved them back will end up treating them exactly as their mamas do.
Eve Small

This is Our County's Reality

After finishing this book, I remember having a mixed bag of feelings. I was happy that Skeeter accomplished what she wanted and got a job at Harper and Row. I was happy that the maids made a difference and had the black community supporting them. I was glad that Minny was leaving her abusive husband. However, I was unhappy on how accurately I feel this book portrays part of our country's past. I'm glad that it was accurate, but I didn't want to believe that it was true. I thought that when slavery was abolished, we no longer allowed only certain races to get unskilled low paying jobs. However this is not true. This book brings out the stark reality that we abolished slavery, wiping our hands free as a country saying we no longer tolerated it. When in fact the power didn't become equal, and the class structure in the communities and the values in the south continued to be the same. I think this definitely was the most powerful lesson that I took away from this book.

Thinking more about the story after finishing it, I began to question how children who are raised by the help can grow up and become just as mean to the help as their parents were. According to the book, most domestic help stayed with their employer for their life. Once they started working their as a teenager or young adult, they stayed until themselves or their employer died. This means that they raised their employers kids all the way until they got married. And after their employers died, they usually then went and worked for the same kids they raised. Those same kids ended up treating them as cruel as their parents, even though the maids raised them their whole lives. Even if they didn't go to work for the kids, they worked for people who were raised by the maids.

Treating somebody who should be your family even though you aren't blood related cruel I think is more harsh than the physical abuse slaves endured. I think this because many of the maids developed feelings for the kids they raised and wanted the best for them in life. In result the kids turned around and degraded their dignity and their character. In my book, I think that is a lot more cruel to do to a person even when compared to physically beating somebody. This is definitely a topic that I would be interested in researching. Especially because it seems that the economic standing in the community that somebody had, trumped the family relations that they had developed with domestic help.

How The Help Reflects the American Dream

After being about halfway done with the book, I've realized that this book really feeds into this time periods' idea of the American Dream. It seems that during this time in the south, there were two very different groups of people, and nobody in between. There were the white people and the black people. Though not all white people were rich, like plantation rich, but in comparison to the black people in their communities they were a lot wealthier. The white people not only controlled all aspects of their own lives, but also dictated the lives of the black people in their town, the help. They owned the houses that the black people rented, they controlled the food sources, how they found work, how much they were paid, and the list could go on forever. This book represents that many white people lived comfortably not having many worries in a large house; in contrast to the black people who had up to 6 people families living in a one bedroom house.

With the two different groups of people comes the two different ideas of the American Dream. To many white families during this time period, I think their American Dream was fulfilled. They owned a house, had one or two kids, mom participated with volunteer work, and dad worked a 9-5 job. No worries in the world. Whereas many black families didn't have any of these luxuries or ideals. In their families both parents worked a full time job if not two, got paid a dollar or so for every hour they worked, lived cramp in a small house, had a constant security threat, and had food security problems. The black families were unable to meet our vision of the American Dream. However, their own version of the American Dream, that would make them happy in what they felt was possible was making sure that their family was safe and healthy. These two values I think a lot of white families took for granted. However, when thinking about the American Dream, I don't think that the time period fully filled the definition. The American Dream also means rags to riches. And there was an entire class, who were considered the rags, who couldn't become rich because of their race. This shows that though the American Dream was very relevant for this time period, the definition doesn't completely fit. This book really identifies this as a major theme of the book.