Racial Discrimination, Gender Stereotypes, and Historical Contexts in Kathryn Stockett’S the Help

Racial Discrimination, Gender Stereotypes, and Historical Contexts in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help

Diplomarbeit

Zur Erlangung des

Magistergrades Mag.phil.

an der Kultur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg

Eingereicht von

CAROLIN ELISABETH STALLINGER

Gutachterin: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hanna Wallinger

Fachbereich: Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Salzburg, März 2018

Eidesstaatliche Erklärung

Ich erkläre hiermit eidesstattlich [durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift], dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich oder inhaltlich den angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht als Bachelor-/ Master-/ Diplomarbeit/ Dissertation eingereicht.

______Datum, Unterschrift

Acknowledgements

I would like to use this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hanna Wallinger for her invaluable advice and insightful contributions as well as her continuous support of my diploma thesis and the related research.

Furthermore, I would like to extend my thanks to my friends and fellow students at the University of Salzburg, especially to Anna Griesacker and Maria Schreiner. Their loyalty and encouragement have kept me in good spirits throughout my whole studies and the writing process of this thesis in particular.

Finally, I would like to give my thanks to my family, most importantly my parents and my sister. Without them, this journey would not have been possible and I am truly grateful for their unconditional love and constant support.

CONTENTS Introduction ...... 1 1 Historical Contexts ...... 4 1.1 Racial Segregation in the South: The Jim Crow Era ...... 5 1.2 Domestic Servants ...... 8 2 The Help ...... 11 2.1 The Mammy Figure: The White Children’s Black Mother ...... 12 2.1.1 Contexts ...... 12 2.1.2 Dedication to White Children ...... 17 2.1.2.1 Black Children ...... 19 2.1.2.2 Aibileen and Mae Mobley ...... 23 2.1.2.3 Minny and Celia Foote ...... 26 2.1.2.4 Constantine and Skeeter ...... 28 2.1.3 Giving Up Mammy and Becoming White ...... 30 2.2 The White Home: A Space of Integration in the Segregated South ...... 34 2.2.1 The Kitchen ...... 36 2.2.2 The Relationship Between the White Housewife and the Black Help .... 38 2.2.3 The Subtle Power of the White Lady ...... 43 2.2.4 Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative ...... 44 3 Criticism ...... 48 3.1 Defense of Whiteness ...... 50 3.1.1 Writing Black for a White Audience ...... 51 3.1.2 Romanticizing the Past ...... 54 3.1.3 Making Use of Stereotypes ...... 58 3.2 Autobiographical Aspects ...... 62 3.2.1 Skeeter as Kathryn Stockett ...... 63 3.2.2 Demetrie and Kathryn Stockett ...... 65 3.3 Stolen Stories ...... 68 3.3.1 Kathryn Stockett’s Stolen Story ...... 68 3.3.2 Skeeter’s Exploitation of the Maids ...... 71 Conclusion ...... 81 Bibliography ...... 83

Introduction The Help is set in the early 1960s in the segregated South in Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter has just returned from university and is determined to realize her dream of becoming a writer. Nevertheless, she struggles to find a job and, thus, takes on the Miss Myrna column of the local newspaper, where readers ask for household tips. Skeeter, however, has no idea about household duties and misses her former mammy Constantine, who has disappeared mysteriously. Therefore, she asks her friend’s maid, Aibileen, for advice. At first, the two women only have a superficial conversation about how to maintain a household. Over the course of time, though, Skeeter becomes more and more aware of her friends’ racist attitude and the disrespectful way they treat their employees. When Hilly presents them her new project, the Home Help Sanitation Initiative, and requests that white employers build a separate bathroom for their colored help because of the dangerous black germs they carry in the urine, Skeeter decides that it is time for a change. She starts interviewing Aibileen about her work as a maid in white families and, thus, breaks with the conventions of that time. Her idea is to publish a book about how it feels for black maids to work for white families. First, Aibileen’s friend, Minny, agrees to help them and soon, other maids share their experiences with Skeeter. Hence, the novel emphasizes the collaboration of white and black women despite the separation of races in the segregated South. The Help was published by Kathryn Stockett in 2009. It immediately became a bestseller and, therefore, in, 2011, a film adaption was released, written and directed by Tate Taylor. Nevertheless, The Help also received a great range of negative criticism. Many critics claim that the novel, written by a white, female author, makes use of stereotypes of black as well as white characters and defends the white protagonists. They argue that it is not historically reflective but mirrors Stockett’s own experience by including autobiographical aspects. However, upon closer examination, one can detect that the novel does not side with the white characters, but rather addresses their racist behavior. In addition, from the point of view of genre, it is important to keep in mind that The Help is a piece of fiction and not a history book. Furthermore, a careful analysis of historical contexts and the concept of intersectionality are essential to judge this criticism. Therefore, this thesis will prove

that when one reads the novel through the lens of race, gender, and historical contexts, it turns out that it is more complex than it appears to be. The first point of criticism is that The Help is not historically reflective and sugarcoats the painful past black people had to endure. Thus, it is important to provide background knowledge about the Jim Crow era and the situation of domestic servants in the South at that time. Black people had to experience racism in their everyday lives and endure racist treatment even at their workplace. The situation for black women was especially difficult as they had no career prospects and worked mainly as maids in white homes. Consequently, information on the concept of racial segregation through the Jim Crow laws and the division of society will be given in the first chapter. Furthermore, critics claim that Stockett mocks black life by making use of stereotypes. The mammy figure in particular raises concern as she is described as a black woman who loves the white children she takes care of more than her own and sacrifices herself for the white family. Hence, it is necessary to conduct a close examination of the appearance as well as the characteristics to determine if Aibileen and Minny as well as Skeeter’s mammy Constantine correspond to this stereotypical portrayal. Moreover, the mammies’ relationships with their white charges as well as the process of giving up mammy and accepting the white norms as a striking step in the transformation of the white children into white adults are important components of this stereotype. Besides, this thesis will analyze the role of the white home as a space of integration for both races as it unites the white lady and the black help despite their usual separation in society. Also the working conditions, the white ladies’ treatment of the maids as well as their relationships are noteworthy as critics claim they are romanticized. Therefore, the second chapter will contain a careful analysis of the representation of the stereotypical mammy figure as well as the white home. In addition, Stockett is accused of defending her white characters and intentionally presenting them in a good light in order to diminish their cruel behavior. Besides, that fact that she, as a white author, is giving voice to black characters and making use of stereotypes is perceived as problematic. Moreover, although she denies any resemblance to her white protagonist Skeeter, one can detect autobiographical features, also with respect to the relationships both women experienced with their mammies. Furthermore, the novel raised accusations of plagiarism as her brother’s

help filed a lawsuit against Stockett for using her story in order to create the character of Aibileen. This exploitative behavior can also be detected in Skeeter as she uses the maids’ stories to advance her own career. Therefore, a close examination of Stockett and Skeeter as well as Aibileen is essential, which will be part of the third chapter.

1 Historical Contexts The 1960s, the time when The Help takes place, was not only a complicated, but also a revolutionary period of time for black people in the South. The Jim Crow era had just officially ended a few years before and the Civil Rights movement was gaining popularity. Nevertheless, African Americans still suffered racist treatment and discrimination because, as Kathleen M. Muldoon states, “[s]lavery may have ended decades before. But African Americans in the South were not free” (Muldoon 22). Black women in particular were affected by these restrictions at their work in white homes. There, the white employers treated the black maids as inferior and continued sticking to the rules of racial segregation. Grace E. Hale argues that “[i]n their creation of the white home as a central symbolic site in the New South, women of a rising white southern middle class were key creators of the new racial order, segregation as culture” (93). Although the Jim Crow laws were abolished, white middle-class Southerners emphasized their superiority over their black employees, especially plantation workers or domestic servants (Hale 87). Before, the Jim Crow laws denied black people access to the same places as white people although politicians assured them that they would be treated equally under the Fourteenth Amendment. However, this was not the case and even after the abolishment, African Americans suffered racial discrimination (Muldoon 15). This separation of society is taken up by Kathryn Stockett and, as Christopher Lloyd explains, “The Help is problematic indeed, but it nonetheless agitates questions of race and corporeality in the Jim Crow South” (272). Therefore, when reading The Help, it is important to consider historical contexts such as racial segregation in the Jim Crow era, the separation of both races through the Jim Crow laws, and the hardship domestic servants had to endure at the white home.

1.1 Racial Segregation in the South: The Jim Crow Era The Jim Crow era represented a time of racial segregation regulated through numerous laws. Anne Valk and Leslie Brown explain that the Jim Crow era “can be bookended by two Supreme Court decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which authorized racial segregation, and Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which ostensibly ended it” (12). However, it was especially in the South that this oppression of colored people did take place and affected the political and social situation (Packard 64). During this period, “more than 3,500 African Americans were lynched by white mobs” (Muldoon 26). This cruelty and aggression against black life was incomprehensible; however, “[i]t became and remained vital for an entire century to the Southern white view of life over life’s entire spectrum” (Packard 64). In addition, although the Jim Crow era officially ended in 1954, white supremacy still influenced the life of black people in the South many years afterwards. The term “Jim Crow” refers to a white actor who played a black slave in 1828 (Muldoon 16). By doing so, he “made popular a song and dance routine, ‘Jump Jim Crow’” (Valk/Brown 12). Thus, “Jim Crow” is used as an insult for black people and refers to their inferiority and restrictions (Valk/Brown 12). “Jim Crow references the systemic application of racism applied as white supremacy and black inferiority” (Valk/Brown 12). During this time, black people had to endure racist treatment and were oppressed by the Jim Crow laws. Thus, they even lost their right to vote. White people created these laws in order to demonstrate their power and superiority.

Jim Crow was more than the practice of racial segregation; it was an applied ideology of white supremacy that did not just keep African Americans in a fixed subordinate position in society, it tried to push them further down, if not to eliminate them altogether. (Valk/Brown 9)

However, the African Americans could not do anything against this racist treatment as it was legal. Discrimination and racial segregation were the law and affected various, if not all, parts of the black people’s lives. White inhabitants wanted to remove the black from public places and their neighborhoods. The separation happened through numerous laws, which where different from city to city and could change easily. Thus, black people had to adapt themselves to new rules when they moved to a different place (Valk/Brown 5-9).

The Jim Crow laws were the designated laws that separated white and black people in the South during the Jim Crow era. The basis of these rules was the idea of white supremacy. “The first major Jim Crow law passed in 1890 in New Orleans, Louisiana” (Muldoon 16). It denied colored people access to the same railroad cars as white people. Hence, they had to use separate cars of lower standards that sometimes were even used at the same time for the transportation of animals (Muldoon 16). Lloyd explains that the “Jim Crow laws and ideology attempted to segregate and delineate public spheres for black and white Americans, thus affecting the lived reality for man in the South” (261). They affected nearly every aspect of the everyday life of the black people as they restricted their actions and behaviors. For instance, these laws prohibited colored people to enter buildings or use public transportation that were exclusively for white people. Instead, they had to use separate facilities. “Signs reminded African Americans that white people considered them secondary” (Muldoon 21). This separation extended from supermarkets, libraries or theaters to colored hospitals and even toilets. Furthermore, the Jim Crow laws declared which schools black people were allowed to attend and which areas they could live in. The purpose of these regulations was to segregate both races as white people were seen as better than black people. Moreover, the criminal justice system sided with the white part of society and refused to support black people regarding their personal protection and rights (Valk/Brown 12). In addition, “[k]eeping black people out of positions of power, the legal system itself denied African Americans the right to sit on juries or defend themselves in court” (Valk/Brown 12-13). Different entrances to public buildings, separate bathrooms, and seats in the back of the bus made the distinction between the races and their difference in status clear. Hence, the Jim Crow laws “operated effectively to keep most African American southerners aware of ‘their place,’ even if they dared to challenge it” (Valk/Brown 8). In addition, racist behavior was already instilled into the white children as they were always separated from the black children through the Jim Crow laws. This perception of black people as different and inferior, then, led to the practicing of racism in everyday life. For example, there were separate schools for white and black children and they could not even visit the same playgrounds. In general, there was a great difference between public places for white and black children in terms of state of conditions and facilities (Muldoon 22-23). This racial segregation and pejorative

treatment led not only to a reinforcement of white supremacy, but also to the fact that black children perceived themselves as inferior. Their parents, though, tried to convince them otherwise and imparted them to be proud of their origins. For their own safety, however, they had to follow the Jim Crow laws and rules of racial segregation (Muldoon 23-24). Nevertheless, it was important for them to be reminded of the fact that “[t]hey might be secondary in the eyes of the law. But they were not secondary in truth” (Muldoon 24).

1.2 Domestic Servants During this period, the position of a woman in society was determined according to her husband’s social standing and her race. As Ester Bloom explains, “[f]or centuries, a woman’s social status was clear-cut: either she had a maid or she was one“. Thus, due to the Jim Crow laws, the situation for colored women was complicated and the maids were nearly exclusively colored women as there were hardly any career prospects and it was difficult for them to find another employment in the segregated society. Rebecca Sharpless states that “[i]n 1940, 60 percent of all employed African American females were domestic workers” (Bush). Women who did not work as domestic servants most often were sharecroppers and picked cotton for white people. These were the two main sectors/fields they worked in at that time (Valk/Brown 10). Therefore, black people were dependent on their white employers and needed the work in order to provide a second income for their families. Employing a maid, however, was done, not only to maintain the household, but also served as a status symbol as “in 1959 ... maids were a mundane aspect of the middle class experience“ (Bloom). Nevertheless, not only white women of the upper or middle class employed a colored maid, but also families with less money hired a help, thus “establishing a racial hierarchy through women’s work, and maintaining a form of white privilege” (Valk/Brown 4). Hence, although “the image of the white home occupied by the black mammy was a white middle-class construction”, white families of all classes enjoyed this white supremacy (Hale 102). Furthermore, black women were not only discriminated by white men and women, but also by black men as the duties the maids carried out were perceived as demeaning (Valk/Brown 4). Also, the fact that the black husbands suffered racism in society led to their need to demonstrate power over their wives at home. “While African American men and white women could be oppressed themselves, both groups looked down on African American women” (Sharpless 133). They held the lowest position in society and, thus, any opportunities to improve their education, careers, and independency was withheld from them (Valk/Brown 9). Therefore, they had no other choice than to take on the work at the white family in order to provide financial support for their families. Nevertheless, the sacrifices for this financial security where immense as, often, they had to leave their children behind and put up with sexual harassment and racist treatment at their workplace (Mills 1).

In addition, Sharpless points out that the working conditions often were inhumane and that “domestic work served as a middle ground between slavery and open economy” (xi). The maids received poor payment and the working environment was marked by racist rules. ”Cooks after 1865 were no longer slaves, but the meager or nonexistent wages that they received must have made them wonder whether conditions had changed” (Sharpless 71). Moreover, working hours could vary according to the white family’s plans and the maid had to organize their own day around her employer’s preferences. Often, the help had to work long hours without receiving extra payment for overtime hours, for example serving at parties (Sharpless 69-70). Also the employers’ eating habits determined when the maids had to start working. Hence, they often had to leave their own families early in the morning without being able to care for their children because they had to prepare breakfast for the white families they worked for (Sharpless 67). However, the employers often did no appreciate this commitment as “[t]he returns for such working hours often scarcely justified the cooks’ efforts” (Sharpless 71). Some maids even stayed with the white family and lived there, taking care of the household as well as the children twenty- four hours a day (Sharpless 66). Furthermore, the maids often had to wear a uniform, which emphasizes their submissive role at the white home. In addition, the white housewives often enjoyed being in a higher position and, thus, treated their maids as inferior. Hence, the relationships between the employers and their maids were often poor. As Sharpless explains, “[i]n the Jim Crow South, race as well as sex affected relationships between employer and employee, as it did nearly everything else” (132). The white lady in particular took advantage of her position, as she did not have many rights in society at that time. At the white home, however, she was in power and enjoyed demonstrating this superiority by treating the maid in a racist manner. “In an association such as that between a housewife and a domestic worker, everyday actions both control and oppose” (Sharpless 129). Of course, the relationship between the white lady and her domestic servant cannot be generalized. Often, however, the maid had to keep to strict rules and endure racist behavior as a sign of her inferiority. For example, by forcing them to use different cups, plates or even toilets, the white ladies gave them a feeling of inferiority and uncleanliness. “Domestic workers had to cope with employers with just such attitudes, who believed them stupid, faithful, and innately talented cooks” (Sharpless 134). In addition, the maids had to be very careful

not to commit any error or disagree with their employer as, usually, the consequence was punishment of any form or even dismissal (Sharpless 136). This treatment shows “how seemingly small, everyday matters could profoundly affect the lives of black domestics and their families” (Walton 347). The circumstances and restrictions on their independence were hard to endure. Sharpless reminds that “[f]or them, the indignities were innumerable, but so were the efforts to establish agency over one’s life, to survive those thousand small cuts with one’s head held high” (Bush). In addition, colored maids often had to cope with sexual abuse at the white home. Despite the abolition of slavery, their white male employers still saw them as their property, frequently sexually harassing them at work. Valk and Brown explain that “[s]lavery had provided white men license to sexually access virtually every African American woman or girl” (Valk/Brown 8). If the maid, however, resisted her employer’s sexual approaches, she ran the risk of losing her job and, thus, not being able to feed her children. Furthermore, she could not count on assistance as “white- on-black rape and sexual assault were frequent, and such offences typically were ignored by police” (Valk/Brown 9). Therefore, she had to prepare her daughters for their future profession as a maid, serving white people while, at the same time, being worried and warning them of the white men’s inappropriate behavior (Valk/Brown 8). Nevertheless, although in the 1960s, the Jim Crow laws were officially abolished, the black people were still treated as inferior and society was separated. “That is, Jim Crow as a practice existed before 1896 and continues into the twenty-first century” (Valk/Brown 12). Vanessa May reminds that “it is important that we recognize, even if The Help does not, black women’s long tradition of political and labor activism. Domestic workers continue to stand up for themselves” (Bush).

2 The Help The Help addresses the topic of racial segregation through the Jim Crow laws and is “set in the segregated South at the time of the tragic murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers” (Thompson 61). The two black protagonists Aibileen and Minny work as maids for white families. There, they have to fulfill all kinds of household duties, which include childcare, cooking, and cleaning. Their role as a mammy is especially important as Stockett emphasizes that the close relationship with her own mammy, Demetrie, was the motive for writing this book. Similar to that, Aibileen and Mae Mobley, the little girl she takes care of, have a very strong bond and Skeeter remembers the good times with her former mammy Constantine. However, when Hilly fires Minny and threatens to make sure that she will never find employment again, the concept of white supremacy is highlighted. With this behavior white women emphasize their superiority over their black maids. Nevertheless, Celia Foote employs Minny and they develop a very unusual relationship for black and white women at that time. At the white home, the black help often had to endure the racist attitude of the white lady. Inhumane working conditions and racial discrimination, such as Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative, made it even more difficult. Nevertheless, it was a space of reunion for both races and emphasized their proximity in the otherwise segregated society. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the stereotypical mammy figure and the relationship with her white charges as well as the white home as a space of integration for black and white people.

2.1 The Mammy Figure: The White Children’s Black Mother “Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do” (Stockett 1). With this statement, Aibileen, one of the black maids in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, opens the novel and describes her profession. The mammy spends most of her days with the Leefolt family where she has to cook, clean, and take care of little Mae Mobley. Besides a low income and long working hours, she is treated as inferior by society but still is expected to love the white family unconditionally. Aibileen shares this fate with her friend Minny, who works for Celia Foote, and Constantine, Skeeter’s former mammy. Several critics, amongst them Kimberly Wallace-Sanders and Katrina D. Thompson, argue that the characters in The Help are mostly stereotypes and convey a false image of the black society. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the mammy stereotype and analyze how it is applied in the novel by firstly providing some theoretical background about the characteristics and the history of the mammy figure and, subsequently, taking a closer look at the relationship between the mammies and their white charges as well as their own children.

2.1.1 Contexts As Harry L. Watson states, “’Mammy’ is one of the most vivid characters on the southern cultural landscape” (Watson 2). She is not only a caretaker but also serves as a status symbol to indicate her employer’s role in society. Only people of a certain class could afford to employ a mammy and, thus, Hale argues that she functions as a marker “of both whiteness and class status” (105). By employing a black maid and treating her as a second-class citizen, white people reveal both their dependence on black people as well as “the centrality of blackness to the making of whiteness” (Hale 113). This racist attitude and feeling of superiority is later also transferred to their white children. “Mammy, then, was a liminal figure in the stark binaries of the culture of segregation” (Hale 105). Through racial segregation such as the Jim Crow laws, white people create two worlds by setting up sharp boundaries to keep blacks out of their lives, such as separate supermarkets, libraries, public toilets or buses. Ironically, they let black maids enter their homes, the most intimate space, in order to be waited on. Therefore, the mammy has to cross this boundary between “Colored Town” and “White Town” (Hale 105). Thus, the mammy does not enter the white home as a black woman, but as the help, wearing a white uniform, using a separate bathroom,

and eating from different plates. Hale explains that “[t]he black woman as domestic symbol, then, not only crossed the chasm between the Old South and the New, she transgressed the color line as well” (102). Therefore, the white home functions as a place of reunion for the otherwise segregated races. At her employer’s home, the mammy does not only take care of the children, but also carries out all the work that the white lady does not want to do, from cooking to cleaning and grocery shopping. Yet, the mammy is much more than simply a domestic help because she acts as the white children’s friend, adviser, educator, and second mother. “Ageless, sexless, and undistracted by her own children, she pours endless love on her white babies, [and] teaches them (and their mothers) everything important from manners to biscuit-making” (Watson 2). Although the mammy is treated as inferior, dirty, and full of diseases, as one can see in the separation of the bathrooms, the white families entrust their children and households to her and count on her skills. This contradictory behavior of the white family emphasizes the racial segregation in the South and the terrible conditions black people had to cope with. The stereotypical mammy, however, does not seem to be bothered by this treatment because she is portrayed as obsequious, devoted, patient, generous, sympathetic, and caring - all characteristics that satisfy the illusion of the perfect mother and nanny, however, dark-skinned. According to Wallace-Sanders, these attributes as well as the mammy’s awareness of her lower status “point to a long-lasting and troubled marriage of racial and gender essentialism, mythology, and southern nostalgia” (Mammy 2). Attributing such qualities to the mammy makes the white people feel confirmed in their actions and serves as a justification for their bad treatment of black people and racial segregation. As Thompson explains, “[a]lmost every attribute assigned to the mammy contributes to her role in society and public memory as maternal and happily submissive” (62). Hence, the white family takes the mammy, who silently fulfills their orders and dedicates her whole life to them, for granted. (Watson 2). The selfless mammy figure is a recurrent theme; it constantly appears in literature and is a popular topic for the white readership. “Immortalized in songs, stories, and films, Mammy is the endlessly loving, eternally loyal black woman who nurses, scolds, comforts, and guides her white charges” (Watson 2). Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that most mammy stories are written by white authors, who created this stereotypical image of the black mammy “as a defense for the institution

of slavery through plantation stories, literature, theater, advertisements, and other manifestations in mass media” (Thompson 59). The mammy stereotype goes back to the plantations, where enslaved women already fulfilled household duties (Thompson 59). Thus, “[t]he narrative of the faithful slave is deeply rooted in the American racial imagination” (McElya 3). However, white Southerners want to act as if past conditions such as slavery or the Jim Crow laws had never happened and even do not acknowledge racism nowadays (McElya 3). The black mammy “continually emerges in times of white fears of change as a continual shrine to whiteness” (Thompson 60). By creating the submissive mammy figure and romanticizing the relationship between her and the white family, white people justified these injustices. Therefore, as Thompson explains, “the mammy as portrayed in American popular culture never existed” (59). Concerning the appearance, a stereotypical look has been created for mammies. Wallace-Sanders explains that the “[m]ammy’s body is grotesquely marked by excess: she is usually extremely overweight, very tall, broad-shouldered; her skin is nearly black” (Mammy 5-6). Generally, mammies are deliberately depicted as unattractive in order to create a sharp contrast to the good-looking white ladies they work for. This portrayal is not only used to underline their submissive role and lower status in society, but also to “desexualize these black women, allowing them to inconspicuously enter white households” (Thompson 63). This can also be observed in Skeeter’s description of Aibileen’s dark skin, contrasting with her white work clothes, emphasizing the racial difference and the maid’s subordinate position in the white home. “Her skin is dark brown and shiny against her starchy white uniform” (Stockett 78). Although both Minny and Aibileen are short, the rest of their physical description fits the mammy stereotype very well. Thompson argues that the physical depiction of Minny and Aibileen, such as their overweight figure and their dark skin, serves to “distract from any notion of attraction and, therefore, evade any opportunity for sexual harassment” (63). One time, for instance, Aibileen even compares her dark skin with a cockroach, conveying a lack of attraction (Thompson 63). “That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor. He big, inch, inch an a half. He black. Blacker than me” (Stockett 189). Nevertheless, the physical description of the white characters in the novel, especially Elizabeth Leefolt and Hilly Holbrook, is not very flattering either. Aibileen describes Elizabeth as a skinny woman with thin hair and sharp contours. “Her face

be the same shape as that red devil on the redhot candy box, pointy chin and all“ (Stockett 2). They are described as childlike as, for instance, Aibileen says about Hilly that she is “one a those grown ladies that still dress like a little girl with big bows and matching hats and such“ (Stockett 5). Even the friendly Skeeter is portrayed as inconspicuous and unfeminine. “Miss Skeeter real tall and skinny … [and] always look like somebody else told her what to wear“ (Stockett 4). Skeeter, who in reality is called Eugenia, as a little child looked like a mosquito, very thin and tall. “I was long and leggy and mosquito-thin” (Stockett 57). Her appearance as a baby earned her this nickname as her brother stated: “It’s not a baby, it’s a Skeeter” (Stockett 57). Another characteristic of the stereotypical mammy is her weight. In contrast to the gamine white ladies, Minny’s curvaceous body emphasizes her maternal care and her profession as a cook. “Minny stands with her arms crossed over her huge bosom … She is fat and short and strong. Her skin is black than Aibileen’s by ten shades, and shiny and taut” (Stockett 163-164). Usually, a mammy is rather corpulent, underlining her motherliness and affection for the great number of children she takes care of. Skeeter, as a white woman who had a black mammy herself, is familiar with their usual appearance and portrays Aibileen as the stereotypical mammy children enjoy nestling up to. “She’s a little plump in the middle, but it is a friendly softness” (Stockett 78). Her stature indicates her skills in childcare and represents security as Aibileen confirms, “babies like fat. Like to bury they face up in you armpit and go to sleep. They like big legs too” (Stockett 2). This description creates an image of a warm-hearted, affectionate woman who devotes herself to caring for her employers’ white babies. In contrast to the corpulent mammies, the white women such as Elizabeth, Hilly, and Skeeter are all skinny. Elizabeth Leefolt, for example, is described as “lanky as a fourteen-year-old boy” (Stockett 1). This portrayal emphasizes her lack of feminine curves and motherly features and contrasts with Aibileen’s body shape. Due to Elizabeth’s immature appearance, she comes across as a young girl who is not able to care for her children; thus, she needs the experienced mammy. “[S]he not just frowning all the time, she skinny. Her legs is so spindly, she look like she done growed em last week” (Stockett 1). This description indicates the stark contrast between Aibileen’s soft body that Mae Mobley likes to cuddle with and her mother’s bony stature that is just as sharp as her character. “[H]er whole body be so full a sharp knobs and corners, it’s no wonder she can’t soothe that baby” (Stockett 2). The black

women’s natural role as an educator and nurturer, therefore, is also attributed to their physique (Thompson 62). Furthermore, the mammies’ appearance does not only reveal their knowledge in childcare but also their talent in the kitchen as Thompson states, “throughout history [mammies] have excellent culinary skills” (65). The different roles of the mammy figure are distributed between the two maids in the novel as Minny is the talented cook and Aibileen takes care of the children. Minny especially corresponds to the stereotypical mammy look of a cooking mammy with her “hundred-and-sixty- five-pound, five-foot-zero self practically busting out of my uniform“ (Stockett 35). Her body type already indicates her profession and “reminds Americans that black women with their superb cooking talents, should be present in the kitchen” (Thompson 63). Her reputation as an outstanding cook and the repeated emphasis on her culinary skills in the novel give emphasis to Minny’s role as a cooking mammy (Thompson 65). As Aibileen reveals, her friend is “near bout the best cook in Hinds County, maybe even all a Mississippi” (Stockett 7). Nonetheless, as Thompson observes, “cooking secured Minny’s job while it also offered her personal pleasure within her own turbulent life” (Thompson 65). Far away from her own chaos at home, Minny enjoys the silence while cooking in Celia Foot’s kitchen, which serves as a kind of meditation for her. “I watch the chicken sizzle, try to forget she’s there. Frying chicken always makes me feel a little better about life“ (Stockett 224). Although Minny is known as a sassy maid, who, in comparison to many other black maids, dares to contradict her employer, her cooking skills have already saved her occasionally from losing her job. As Aibileen explains, “[s]ides stealing, worse thing you’n do for your career as a maid is have a smart mouth. Still, she such a good cook, sometimes it makes up for it“ (Stockett 17). She is even asked to bake her famous caramel cake for the ladies of the Junior League Benefit, which is a big honor for a black maid (Stockett 7). Minny is proud of her talent and when she starts working for Celia, she makes clear that her former employers enjoyed her fantastic cooking skills. “I just hope she’s an eater. Because I’m a cooker and that’s why people hire me” (Stockett 31). Later, she even gives Celia cooking lessons as the white lady would like to be able to prepare dinner for her husband on her own. Moreover, the mammies’ domestic skills and their superiority of performing this kind of work contrast with the white women’s lack of those skills and their inability to acquire them (Thompson 66). As Thompson points out, “[b]lackness

represents subjugation and intrinsic servant abilities, while whiteness illustrates cleanliness and an inability to perform particular household duties” (66). The maids in the novel are presented as innate domestics and know how to fulfill all those duties whereas the white ladies do not know how to cook, clean or educate their children (Thompson 66). Skeeter has to ask Aibileen for advice when writing her Miss Myrna column and needs to provide the readers with household tips she herself has no idea about. Celia Foote, Minny’s employer, is even more inexperienced and burns every meal she tries to cook. She admits that she “just can’t seem to get the hang of kitchen work“ (Stockett 31). As Thompson points out, “[w]hite women hold a conflicting duality in society: they are both naïve domestics and fully capable supervisors” (Thompson 66). Due to their status and class, these white ladies do not have to perform household duties and, therefore, do not know how to do the domestic chores; however, at the same time, as the employer, they monitor their maids and criticize their work. This aspect can be observed very well in the characters of Elizabeth and Hilly, who do not know how to train their children to use the toilet, polish the silver, or prepare dinner, but still control their maids. Celia is unable to be a housewife, too. Yet, she is very grateful for Minny’s help and tries to improve her cooking skills. Moreover, her husband does not mind that she can neither cook nor clean their house. When Mister Johnny finds out about Minny, he praises her culinary skills and remembers his own mammy. “Hell, I haven’t eaten like this since Cora Blue was around. She practically raised me … I sure do miss her“ (Stockett 138). This shows that even those mammies who are not constantly present in the story have stereotypical characteristics.

2.1.2 Dedication to White Children As Wallace-Sanders points out, “African American women were thought to be innately superior in their abilities as caretakers of white children” (Mammy 8). This natural talent of taking care of white children is inextricably linked with the mammy’s dedication to them. “For almost two centuries, she continues to love white families even more than her own family” (Thompson 59). In order to care for her employer’s children, she had to leave her own black children behind. Furthermore, the typical mammy figure is thought to love her biological children less than the white children she takes care of. It even gets to the stage that her “own kids recede into the

background until they are virtually invisible” (Wallace-Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 67). White children, such as Mae Mobley, call their mammy “mama” and, in return, Aibileen also refers to Mae Mobley as “her baby” (Stockett 155; 15). Thus, mammy can be understood “as an ultimate representation of maternal devotion” (Wallace-Sanders, Mammy 13-14). In contrast to the apparently innately good black nursemaids, the white women in The Help are depicted as miserable mothers. Elizabeth Leefolt, for instance, is busy with her seemingly important work. She appears not to be bothered but is rather annoyed by Mae Mobley and her longing for love. “Ever so often, I come to work and find her bawling in her crib, Miss Leefolt busy on the sewing machine rolling her eyes like it’s a stray cat stuck in the screen door” (Stockett 4). Spending so much time with the white family on limited space, the help gets to know all their character traits and secrets. “Miss Leefolt, she dress up nice ever day … you never think she go and leave her baby crying in her crib like that. But the help always know” (Stockett 4). Furthermore, she is portrayed as an irascible, brutal, and heartless person who hits her daughter for trying to get her attention and affection. Aibileen describes this scene and is shocked by her employer’s behavior and way of treating Mae Mobley. “’Mama! Mama!’ she say, trying to crawl up in Miss Leefolt’s lap … Miss Leefolt slap Baby Girl on the back a her bare legs so hard I jump from the sting“ (Stockett 18). However, this is not the only time that Elizabeth slaps her child. When Mae Mobley uses the colored bathroom, Elizabeth chastises her. Aibileen listens to this scolding and thinks to herself that she is the only one who educates Mae Mobley while her own mother only constantly criticizes her. “’I did not raise you to use the colored bathroom!’ I hear her hiss-whispering, thinking I can’t hear, and I think, Lady, you didn’t raise your child at all” (Stockett 95). Instead of being excited about Mae Mobley finally being able to use the toilet, she slaps her daughter when she sees her using Aibileen’s bathroom. “Miss Leefolt snatch her up, give her a pop on the leg” (Stockett 95). Aibileen feels guilty because she cannot do anything and sympathizes with her. “My heart feel like it’s squeezing up into my throat-pipe … I go give Baby Girl a hug. She still crying and she look awful confused“ (Stockett 95). To indicate that Miss Leefolt is no exception, Aibileen makes reference to another white family, the Dudleys, whom Aibileen remembers treating their children badly and punishing the boy for wearing skirts. “I looked after the Dudley family for too long, over six years. His daddy would take him to the garage and whip him with a

rubber hose-pipe trying to beat the girl out a that boy until I couldn’t stand it no more“ (Stockett 285). She regrets that she had not interfered sooner, but sat quietly in the kitchen, waiting for it to be over. When Aibileen saw the bad treatment of the white parents, at home she lavishes her son with love, making sure that he knows that she is proud of him. “Treelore near bout suffocated when I’d come home I’d hug him so hard“ (Stockett 285). Also Skeeter is aware of the mammy stereotype and the myth that she sacrifices herself to care for her white charges. In a conversation with Elaine Stein about her book, she admits that “everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family ... But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it“ (Stockett 106). Skeeter, in contrast to the other white characters in the novel, is the only one who does not only think about herself, but also tries to put herself in the maids’ place in order to get an insight into their feelings. After hearing the maids’ stories she concludes that “[t]here is undisguised hate for white women, there is inexplicable love” (Stockett 257). White people like the idea that the black mammy dedicates herself to the white children and loves them even more than her own children. However, one must not forget that white authors themselves created the mammy figure. As Wallace-Sanders puts it and, thus, destroys the romantic image of selfless mammies: they “were being paid (however poorly) to love and encourage children as part of their employment” (Wallace- Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 76).

2.1.2.1 Black Children The stereotypical mammy, as mentioned before, leaves her biological children behind in order to fully concentrate on the well-being of the white family, especially the white children. According to Wallace-Sanders, the only function that her own, black children fulfill is “to reaffirm her attachment to her surrogate (white) children” (Mammy 19). Although Aibileen mentions Mae Mobley, the white children she takes care of as part of her profession, right at the beginning and before the reader learns about her own son, Treelore, who died in a tragic accident at work at the age of 24, this fact is no indicator that she loved him less than Mae Mobley. The same is true for the other maids in the novel. Yule May, for example, as well does truly care about her own children and even risks having to go to prison for them as she wants to send both

of her twin sons to college. However, she does not have enough money and when Hilly, her employer, refuses to lend her the tuition money, she does not see any other solution than stealing a ring from her. Although it even turns out to be worthless, Hilly reports her and Yule May has to pay a court fine and gets arrested for four years. Therefore, it is not true that the mammies prefer the white children to their own. In addition, when you spend time with young children on a regular basis, you will grow fond of them. Furthermore, Wallace-Sanders argues that Aibileen mentions Mae Mobley seventy-seven times and her own son, Treelore, only nine times (“Every Child Left Behind” 72). Nevertheless, Aibileen talks less about Treelore because he is dead and the story is about her experience of working for a white family. It is, however, not true that she has forgotten him as she still thinks of him and expresses her grief and sorrow. When she remembers Treelore’s death, she admits “[t]hat was the day my whole world went black” (Stockett 2). For Aibileen it is hard to talk about her son’s death, but her simple language also conveys emotions. It took a long time for her to get over this cruel stroke of fate. “Took three months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still there” (Stockett 3). This depression shows Aibileen’s strong feelings for her son and her maternal care. It is natural that she suffered a trauma, caused by Treelore’s accident and the shocking message of his death. It even went as far as she did not want to be alive anymore without her own son and planned her suicide. “I already had the rope tied when Minny found it“ (Stockett 28). Only her friend Minny could help her find her way back into normal life and cared for her. Also, she had to get back to work to earn money, in contrast to the privileged whites who could afford to grieve for a year or even longer without having to work. “Five months after the funeral, I lifted myself up out a bed. I put on my white uniform … and I went to wait on Miss Leefolt cause she just have her baby girl” (Stockett 3). Thus, she drew on her inner strength and made a fresh start by working for the Leefolt family. Mae Mobley had just been born and Aibileen could give all her love and affection to the baby girl. However, she could not forget the fact that white people caused her son’s death and, even worse, treated the dead body without dignity. When Skeeter asks her about this incident, she is not able to tell her the tragic story. Instead, she writes it out and reads it to her. “On our fifth session, Aibileen reads to me about the day Treelore died. She reads about how his broken body was thrown on the back of a pickup by the white foreman” (Stockett 153). Since that day, she has looked at

the relationship between white and black people and their mutual dependence with an even more critical eye. “I put the iron down real slow, feel that bitter seed grow in my chest, the one planted after Treelore died“ (Stockett 29). Although she puts on a brave face and performs her duties, deep inside, she does not condone everything they do anymore. In general, she likes taking care of Mae Mobley and loves the little girl; nevertheless, when she watches her playing in the garden, she misses her son terribly. “The way I used to feel watching Treelore. And that makes me kind a sad, memoring“ (Stockett 92). Therefore, Aibileen’s statements indicate that she, in contrast to the stereotypical mammy figure, loved her own, black son very much, and does not put her white charges before her biological child. However, she has also developed feelings for Mae Mobley as she spends a major part of her day with the little girl. Moreover, Wallace-Sanders claims that Minny is portrayed as a quick- tempered woman, a fantastic cook, a good maid, but an uninterested mother as she hardly ever mentions her five children (“Every Child Left Behind” 72). According to her, “[t]he children are far removed from Minny and her chapters, with any interactions so thinly drawn they are somewhat disturbing” (Wallace-Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 72). However, just like it is the case with Aibileen, the story is not so much about Minny’s family but more about her job as a maid in white homes. Therefore, she relates her personal experience working for white people and only now and then includes information about her own children. In addition, she does not work as a mammy, but only fulfills household duties at Miss Celia’s and, thus, stating that she does not love her own children is not true. Also, Thompson perceives the relationship between the black woman and her children as dysfunctional because Minny admits that she enjoys the silence at work, far away from her family (67). “My house is always full of five kids and neighbors and husband. Most days when I come in to Miss Celia’s I am grateful for the peace” (Stockett 47). Nevertheless, a mother of five children occasionally appreciates a break from her chaotic family life, which, however, does not automatically have to be an indicator for her lack of love. Additionally, Minny has a violent husband, who treats her badly and makes her life difficult, which is, of course, also a reason why she likes to escape from home from time to time. While Minny is a grown-up woman and can, more or less, cope with Leroy, Thompson criticizes the fact that it is not mentioned how her children can handle this difficult family situation (67).

In addition, the black mammy figure “is typically depicted as impatient or brusque (sometimes even violent or abusive) with her own children, in contrast to her lavish, affectionate patience for her white charges” (Wallace-Sanders, Mammy 6). Although Minny yells at Kindra when she does not behave well, she is neither violent nor abusive and not a bad mother. “’You go get your daddy the proper way,’ I yell. ‘What I tell you about yelling in my house?’” (Stockett 218). According to Wallace- Sanders, “The Help affirms the stereotype of black mothers as harsh and punishing with heir own children” (“Every Child Left Behind” 68). This is partly true as Minny is a tough person and this character trait is also reflected in the way she treats her children; however, as already discussed, Aibileen was a caring mother, and also Minny shows that she loves her children. Therefore, neither Aibileen nor Minny fully fit the mammy stereotype. Besides, the mammy is being paid to look after the white children and care for them; hence, she cannot afford to be rude to them. Of course, she has to work long hours and spends most of her day with other people’s children, which results in less time for her family, but that does not mean that she does not love her own, black children. She simply has no other choice and needs to work in order to earn money and guarantee a secure future. The prejudices against the black community and the mammy in particular also affect her children, who are “usually dirty and ill mannered” (Wallace-Sanders, Mammy 6). Although Kindra, Minny’s youngest child, behaves in a petulant way, her other four children are well-behaved. The little Kindra already knows very well what she wants and demands food from her mother. “’Mama, fix me something to eat. I’m hungry.’ That’s what my youngest girl, Kindra, who’s five, said to me last night. With a hand on her hip and her foot stuck out“ (Stockett 51). When Minny tells her that she has to wait until dinner, Kindra overreacts and insults her mother. “’Why you so mean to me? I hate you,’ she yelled and ran out the door“ (Stockett 51). However, Kindra is five years old and there should not be put too much weight on her behavior. On the one hand, she is rebellious, but on the other hand, she also shows her deep love for her mother when she wants to protect her from the white people. “Kindra props her arm on her hip. ‘Nuh-uh. Ain’t nobody putting my mama in jail. I beat those white people with a stick till they bleed.’” (Stockett 220). Although she is still very young, Kindra already has an understanding of racial segregation and wants to defend her family against white people. “Little Miss Something slaps her fork down on the table, climbs out of her chair. ‘I hate white people! And I’m on tell everbody if I want to!’”

(Stockett 220). This strong will to fight against injustice reminds one of her mother. Moreover, her other children are well behaved, which proves that a mammy’s children do not have to be ill-bred. Felicia, for instance, is a kind, thoughtful girl with a need for harmony. “’I’m sorry, Daddy,’ Felicia says because she’s the kind that’s going to take the blame for everyone every time. ‘And I look after Kindra. She don’t know what she saying’” (Stockett 220). Also, Benny cares for his siblings and lends a helping hand. “’Benny got the asthma. He don’t need to be doing nothing.’ But my sweet boy gets up anyway, takes the plate from Kindra. My kids know how to work“ (Stockett 219). Although Minny is sometimes impatient with her children and cannot spend so much time with them because of her work, she is proud of them. “I’ve got good kids … I’m proud of my family” (Stockett 310). Just as a mammy educates her white charges, Minny teaches her own children manners.

2.1.2.2 Aibileen and Mae Mobley When Aibileen opens the novel, the first thing she talks about is the white baby she is currently taking care of, Mae Mobley Leefolt. This behavior corresponds to the image of the mammy, who is passionate about their employer’s white children (Laws “When Whites Write Black” 6).

Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby, we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning. (Stockett 1)

Aibileen puts her heart and her soul into her work and the education of the white children. She has a lot of experience, as Mae Mobley is already the eighteenth child she has cared of. Wallace-Sanders even goes as far as saying that “[t]aking care of white babies is more than what Aibileen ‘does’; it is her primary identity as one of the main characters” (“Every Child Left Behind” 66). Therefore, Wallace-Sanders implies that the first characteristic that is associated with Aibileen is being a mammy and only then she is seen as a black woman. Because of the loss of her own son, Aibileen commits herself to the children’s education and tries to show them that they are loved. In addition, she wants to make sure that they learn about racial equality and

turn out better humans. She is aware of her talent and superiority over the white parents regarding childcare. “There’s pride in Aibileen’s tone – pride in her skills as a substitute parent. Whites are assumed to be inept, indifferent to their own children, and even lazy” (Laws “When Whites Write Black” 6-7). White people give away their children at a shocking young age, entrusting their education to people they do not want to share the same bathroom or plates with. This is also true for the Leefolt family and Aibileen, who has known Mae Mobley nearly since she was born. “I went to work for Miss Leefolt in 1960. When Mae Mobley two weeks old“ (Stockett 153). She spends so much time with her, teaching her how to eat, walk or use the toilet, so that she is like a second mother to the little white girl. Her affection goes so far that Mae Mobley states that Aibileen is her mother.

“Aibee, you’re my real mama.” She don’t even look at me, just say it like she talking about the weather. I kneel down on the floor where she playing. “Your mama’s off getting her hair fixed. Baby Girl, you know who your mama is.” But she shake her head, cuddling that doll to her. “I’m your baby,” she say. “Mae Mobley, you know I’s just teasing you, about all them seventeen kids being mine? They ain’t really. I only had me one child.” “I know,” she say. “I’m your real baby. Those other ones you said are pretend.” (Stockett 284-285)

Mae Mobley has known Aibileen practically her whole life and is very attached to her. While her mother is often angry at her or annoyed by her longing for attention and love, Aibileen is always there to comfort her. Patiently, she listens to the little girl, teaches her new things, and plays with her. That is why she feels that, in reality, Aibileen is more like a mother to her than Elizabeth. Although she reminds her that Elizabeth is her real mother, she does not clarify that the one child she mentions was Treelore and does not contradict when Mae Mobley announces that she is her real child. Wallace-Sanders claims that “[b]y emphasizing Aibileen’s relationship to Mae Mobley and ‘her’ other seventeen white children, her own son is effectively erased and Aibileen is established as a black mother who belongs to white children” (“Every Child Left Behind” 66). However, Aibileen probably does not mention her dead son to Mae Mobley in order to avoid questions about him and this loss. In contrast to her real mother, however, the warm-hearted Aibileen spends the whole day with the little girl, affectionately caring for her. This positive attitude is also reflected in Mae Mobley’s feelings towards the mammy. “Soon as I walk in her nursery, Mae Mobley smile at me, reach out her fat little arms” (Stockett 4). Aibileen

provides the little girl with security and affection, feelings that children at her age need. Thus, Aibileen and Mae Mobley have a strong bond. When the small girl articulates her feelings for Aibileen, the mammy is flattered and proud of having achieved such closeness. “’Hi, Aibee. I love you, Aibee,’ and I feel a tickly feeling, soft like the flap a butterfly wings” (Stockett 92). When her work is over and it is time for Aibileen to go home, Mae Mobley does not understand why she has to leave. She clings to her surrogate mother and begs her to stay. “Five o’clock would come round and she’d be hanging on my Dr. Scholl shoe, dragging over the floor, crying like I weren’t never coming back” (Stockett 2). Elizabeth notices her daughter’s deep attachment to the black maid and is envious, as she, the biological mother, could not manage to achieve the same relationship with her daughter. “Miss Leefolt, she’d narrow up her eyes at me like I done something wrong, unhitch that crying baby off my foot. I reckon that’s the risk you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns“ (Stockett 2). With this statement, Aibileen puts the circumstances of black mammies caring for white children in a nutshell and explains the irony of the white women’s behavior. Watson concludes that Aibileen fulfills more character traits of the mammy stereotype than Minny, as she is full of love for white Mae Mobley. However, she “makes her own sacrifice a form of resistance by using steady affirmation and encouragement to protect Mae Mobley from her weak mother and a sexist society” (Watson 2). Aibileen does not only want to take care of the children, but also provide them with self-confidence and a sense of justice. As her parents do not express their feelings towards their daughter, Aibileen strives to make sure that the girl knows that she is loved. “I say, ‘Aibileen.’ She say, ‘Aib-ee.’ I say, ‘Love.’ She say, ‘Love.’ I say, ‘Mae Mobley.’” (Stockett 5). Aibileen wants to strengthen Mae Mobley’s self confidence and show her that she is smart enough to achieve more than just being a housewife like her mother, sewing all day and writing dinner invitations. “You is kind, ... you is smart. You is important“ (Stockett 443). Noticing the effect of her encouragement, she regrets that she did not give this support to the other children she took care of before, especially John Green Dudley, who suffered from his father’s bad treatment. “I wish to God I’d filled his ears with good things like I’m trying to do Mae Mobley“ (Stockett 285). Nevertheless, Wallace-Sanders argues that these phrases are “clearly and unmistakably reserved for white children” (“Every Child Left Behind” 68). Although we do not know if Aibileen ever said such words to Treelore,

we know that she encouraged him to express his opinion as she supported him with his project of writing a book about the life of a black boy who lives in a segregated society. In some situations, however, Aibileen fulfills the mammy stereotype that puts the white children in the foreground. When Elizabeth finds out that Aibileen wrote about her experience working for the Leefolt family, she fires her and, therefore, Aibileen also has to say goodbye to Mae Mobley. Matching the stereotypical mammy profile, “her only concern is not for her personal safety or livelihood but for her separation from Mae Mobley” (Thompson 67).

2.1.2.3 Minny and Celia Foote Although Minny is not Celia’s actual mammy, she cares for her employer and is always there for her. When Celia tries so hard to become a member of the Jackson Junior League and to make friends despite being repeatedly rejected by Hilly, she is depressed. As Minny wants to appear as tough and strong, at first, she does not want to admit that she cares about her white employer. “If I cared, which I don’t, I’d tell her those white ladies ain’t worth it” (Stockett 214). Right after that statement, however, Minny tells her exactly that and, thus, reveals her feelings for Celia (Randle 155). Moreover, she trusts her employer as she even tells her the secret story of the Terrible Awful Thing, the special chocolate pie she baked for Hilly. In addition, just as a mammy, Minny teaches her important skills such as cooking and doing the housework. “Minny is not depicted as being very maternal to her own children, but she is extremely maternal to Celia” (Wallace-Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 72). She looks after Celia when the white woman suffers a miscarriage. When a naked man enters Celia’s garden, Minny is brave enough to confront him and wants to protect her employer. However, Celia also wants to save Minny, so they defeat the trespasser together. Therefore, they support each other and do not have the typical impersonal relationship that other white ladies have with their black maids. “Minny and Celia develop a dynamic that is more of a mentorship than an employer/employee relationship” (Wallace-Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 72). This type of relationship between a white lady and her black maid is very unusual for those times. When Celia notices Minny’s bleeding cut she suffered from Leroy’s beating the previous night, she is worried and offers Minny her help and advice. “’You know,’ she says kind of low, ‘You can talk to me about anything,

Minny’” (Stockett 305). Usually, the white woman is not interested in the maid’s private life and her problems. She just wants her to carry out her work and fulfill her commands. Yet, Celia does not take Minny’s presence and her work for granted as the other white women do and even sees her employee as her friend. “’You know, I’m lucky to have you as a friend, Minny.’ … ‘No ma’am. We ain’t friends.’ ‘Well . . . sure we are’” (Stockett 224). Believing that white and black people can be friends in a segregated society shows Celia’s childlike, naïve behavior and mirrors her unprejudiced character. Minny, however, is realistic and knows, as her mother told her, that the maid and her employer belong to different social classes and cannot be friends. Celia is not aware of this inequality and does not understand Minny’s answer. “’Is it . . .’ She looks down at her chicken. ‘Because you’re colored? Or because you don’t . . . want to be friends with me?’” (Stockett 224). This question shows how unbiased Celia is and creates the impression as if she was living in a different time. Furthermore, “[t]he characters Minny and Celia are portrayed in terms of excess and lack” (Wallace-Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 72). Celia is probably also not aware of their different financial situation. While Minny lives in a small house and does not have enough space for her five children and her husband, Celia has a big, but empty house with enough room for the children she wants so badly but does not have (Wallace-Sanders, “Every Child Left Behind” 72). Minny opens up to Celia and admits that she cannot afford to buy a bigger house and live more comfortably. “The kitchen is the only room in the house we can all fit in together” (Stockett 219). This shows on the one hand Celia’s superior social status, but on the other hand also her lack of social contacts that are reduced to her husband Johnny and Minny. Caccavaio explains that “[t]he isolation of the mansion in the countryside and Miss Celia’s exclusion from the social functions of the other Jackson ladies intensifies Miss Celia’s dependence on Minny for social contact” (61). Minny notices that Celia is very grateful for her company as she has nothing to do all day. Without Minny, she would feel even more alone in her big, empty house. “Every day, Miss Celia looks like she just can’t believe I’ve come back to work. I’m the only thing that interrupts all that quiet around her” (Stockett 47).

2.1.2.4 Constantine and Skeeter As with Mae Mobley and Aibileen, Skeeter also had a very close relationship to her former mammy Constantine. Talking with Aibileen about Constantine reminds her how much she misses having the black woman in her life, sharing her problems with her, and receiving advice. “I miss Constantine more than anything I’ve ever missed in my life” (Stockett 60). As far as she can think back, Constantine was always there, watching her grow while supporting her whenever she needed help. For Skeeter, Constantine was nearly part of the family and she took her presence for granted. “Constantine worked for our family for twenty-nine years“ (Stockett 82). During her childhood and adolescence, Skeeter and Constantine established a strong bond and, exactly like Mae Mobley, Skeeter wanted to be near her mammy, who comforted her and patiently listened to her. “That was the only part I didn’t like about having the top floor of the house, that it separated me from my Constantine“ (Stockett 58). Skeeter disproves the assumption that the black mammy loves the white children she takes care of more than her own simply because they are white. Not knowing that Constantine’s daughter also has white skin, Skeeter feels as loved as being one of Constantine’s own black children by her mammy. “Constantine’s love for me began with missing her child. Perhaps that’s what made it so unique, so deep. It didn’t matter that I was white” (Stockett 360). Hence, the parallels of Aibileen and Constantine are undeniable as Constantine misses her own daughter just as Aibileen misses her dead son. This shows again that the mammies in the novel do not completely correspond to the mammy stereotype, which claimed that mammies did not think about their biological children, because Constantine and Aibileen miss their own children terribly. Even when Skeeter leaves for college, she still stays in touch with her mammy and updates her weekly about her new life. “I wrote Constantine a letter once a week, telling her about my room, the classes, the sorority“ (Stockett 67). Constantine, in return, answered her letters, providing Skeeter with advice and information about her home. Thinking back of the time they spent together, Skeeter is grateful for the happy childhood she experienced thanks to her mammy. “I took Constantine for granted at times, but I think I knew, for the most part, how lucky I was to have her there“ (Stockett 64).

When Constantine suddenly does not answer her letters anymore, Skeeter is worried. After she returned home from college and found out that her mother had fired Constantine, Skeeter was shocked and could not understand her mother’s decision. Just as the mammies who have to leave the white children they have taken care of for years when they are grown up, Skeeter suffers a trauma because her beloved mammy left her. “I sit at my typewriter, stunned that my mother could cast off someone who’d done her the biggest favor of her life, raise her children, teach me kindness and self-respect“ (Stockett 81). As Constantine accompanied Skeeter through her childhood and adolescence, she became an important part of her upbringing. Therefore, she tries hard to find out the circumstances for her mysterious departure and begs Aibileen to tell her the truth. When her mother finally reveals that her mammy is already dead, Skeeter cannot believe that she missed the chance to thank her for everything and to say goodbye to one of the most important people in her life. During the search for Constantine, Skeeter “fails to recognize how little she knows about the women who have worked for her family and her friends” (Smith 29). Constantine’s father was white and that is why her daughter, although having black parents, turned out to have white skin. Skeeter, however, did not know about Constantine’s family situation and, therefore, had no explanation for her sudden disappearance. Skeeter’s “lack of knowledge about her beloved Constantine’s life suggests the asymmetry in the relationship between the black maids and the families for which they worked” (Smith 30). This shows that the mammies enter the white home and, there, get an inside into the family and their real personalities, problems, and secrets. In contrast, the members of the white family, including the children who love their mammies, are not interested in the private lives of their employees as well as their worries and problems (Smith 30). When Skeeter was a young girl, she broke a taboo and sometimes accompanied Constantine home to the black village. “If I begged and practiced my catechism, Mother would sometimes let me go home with Constantine on Friday afternoons“ (Stockett 61). Being used to a segregated town, which is divided into white and black, Skeeter did not find it unusual that there were different rules for these people. Only much later, during her secret meetings with Aibileen and the other maids, does she get to know the mammy’s life and begins to understand the inequalities and injustices (Watson 2). Suddenly, she starts to think about Constantine not only as her mammy, but also as a mother of her own child. “I look down,

wondering if Constantine couldn’t take care of her child because she had to take care of us“ (Stockett 358). She feels guilty that she made demands on most of Constantine’s time while her own daughter had to do without her and stay at home alone. Skeeter is, thus, aware of the racial inequalities as her “white skin does not affect her relationship with the family maid; however, Constantine’s own daughter’s complexion was a major hardship that resulted in her removal from the South” (Thompson 68). As Thompson explains, Stockett shows that while the black mammy was expected to love the white people she worked for, the same was not always possible for her own children (68). Just as Aibileen tries to teach Mae Mobley that all humans are the same, Constantine encouraged Skeeter to stand up for her opinion. When Hilly asks her to publish her Home Help Sanitation Initiative in the newsletter, Skeeter at first reluctantly agrees. While she is writing, however, she thinks about Constantine and the lessons she taught her. “All I can think while I’m typing is, What would Constantine think of me?“ (Stockett 281). Therefore, she decides to change the article about Hilly’s initiative and makes the inhabitants of Jackson drop off old toilets in Hilly’s front yard. “With Constantine as her voice and guide, Skeeter learns to discover and believe her own feelings, even with regard to two matters that lay at the heart of Southern social codes: race and gender” (West 53). Moreover, Constantine strengthened Skeeter’s self esteem and advised her to be proud of herself. As a teenager, Skeeter was ashamed of her height as her colleagues made fun of her and called her ugly. Constantine comforted her and cheered her up. “’Now you look a here, Eugenia’ … ‘Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?’” (Stockett 62). Even Skeeter’s mother tells her that she is not pretty enough and too tall for a girl (Stockett 64). Therefore, as West argues, “[i]t is through Constantine’s gaze that Skeeter comes to recognize her self-worth and the possibility that she is not ugly” (53).

2.1.3 Giving Up Mammy and Becoming White Aibileen experiences racial inequality every day, especially at work. She has experienced herself how the little white girls she took care of and who loved her transform into their arrogant mothers, also hiring a maid and treating her badly. Therefore, she tries to teach Mae Mobley about racial equality by telling her a story

about a black and a white girl who noticed that they are both the same and became friends. “‘So we’s the same. Just a different color,’ say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends“ (Stockett 200). Also Skeeter is aware of this transformation and wants to emphasize this aspect in her book.

I was.., well, I was raised by a colored woman. I’ve seen how simple it can be and – and how complex it can be between the families and the help [...] I’d like to write this showing the point of view of the help. The colored women down here […] They raise a white child and then twenty years later the child becomes the employer. It’s that irony, that we love them and they love us, yet […] We don’t even allow them to use the toilet in the house. (Stockett 105)

Realizing this sad truth, she wants to raise awareness and calls for a change. Now, as an adult, the differences between the races become clear to her and she feels guilty for never having thought about Constantine’s separate bathroom. The mammies dedicate their time and love to the white children and, when they are grown-up, they treat the black women just as badly as their parents. As Hale explains, “[g]iving up mammy highlighted the passage from childhood to adulthood” (118). This transformation meant to accept the white norms and take on a different attitude that often led to a racist behavior. “The central moment in the making of a white southerner, the primal scene of the culture of segregation, then, was one of learning the meaning of race” (Hale 96). A child believes mammy is part of the family, a person to laugh and to play with. However, “[w]ith the end of childhood, whites learned the meaning of segregation” (Hale 117). Then, they change their perspective and attitude and hire a mammy themselves, make her use a separate bathroom to indicate that she is different and dirty. “To be a mature white southerner meant to leave a love for and intimacy with African Americans behind” (Hale 118). Therefore, white adults had to distinguish between the races and their different social status. Nevertheless, it is, of course, not possible to stop loving a person with whom you have spent a major part of your life. “Most gave up their mammies, trading the real African American women who had nurtured them for sentimental mammy stories” (Hale 118). This statement emphasizes again the fact that the mammy figure was created by white authors. With these stories they wanted to maintain the perfect illusion of the black mammy, who unconditionally loves her white children.

Hence, Aibileen is concerned about Mae Mobley and knows that eventually she will transform into a white southern lady. “I look down at Baby Girl, who I know, deep down, I can’t keep from turning out like her mama“ (Stockett 28). From Mae Mobley’s earliest years, she tries to make the little girl aware of the fact that black people are not worse than white. By telling her stories, she explains that the skin tone is only a color. “I want to stop that moment from coming - and it come in ever white child’s life - when they start to think that colored folks ain’t as good as whites” (Stockett 96). However, when Mae Mobley used the colored bathroom, Elizabeth hits her and calls the toilet dirty and full of diseases. By doing this, she suggests the inferiority and devaluation of black people. “I see Baby Girl getting spanked cause a me. I see her listening to Miss Leefolt call me dirty, diseased” (Stockett 96). Aibileen is worried that her explanations and her stories would end up useless and Mae Mobley would believe that her mother was right. “I pray that wasn’t her moment. Pray I still got time“ (Stockett 96). In conclusion, the myth of the popular mammy figure that occurs in numerous stories such as The Help is still an intriguing topic. She is known for her innate childcare skills and her good rapport with children. Moreover, mammy has to be an all-around woman as white people do not only want a domestic help, but also a mother, cook, friend, and educator in one person. The white women, however, are depicted as unable to fulfill these domestic duties. In contrast to the affectionate Aibileen, Elizabeth Leefolt, for example, is impatient and violent. Furthermore, usually being isolated and excluded, the mammy now crosses the racial boundaries and enters the white home where she gets to know the white family very well while they do not know any private details about her. Skeeter also realizes this asymmetrical relationship when she finds out why her beloved Constantine had to leave her. Summing up, it can be said that the characters of Aibileen and Minny contain some features of the stereotypical black mammy concerning their appearance as well as their cooking and childcare skills. Aibileen especially feels a deep attachment to the white children she takes care of and wants to strengthen their self-confidence as well as raise their awareness regarding racial equality. She tells little Mae Mobley stories to teach her lessons about life and prevent her from turning out like her mother. The same was also true for Constantine, who had a close relationship with Skeeter and encouraged her to be proud of herself. Minny, sometimes, is also like a substitute mother for Celia as she teaches her how to cook and supports her during

difficult times. Nevertheless, it is wrong that the mammies prefer the white children to their own; it is their job to take care of them. The mammy cannot decide whom she loves as dedicating herself to her white charges is part of her profession. One should not forget that the black mammy figure is a product of white Southerners in order to ease their conscience and justify past incidents. Therefore, as McElya points out, “[b]lack women did work in white homes, cooked innumerable meals, cared for white children, and surely formed emotional ties to white family members at times, but the mammy was – and is – a fiction” (4).

2.2 The White Home: A Space of Integration in the Segregated South While working in her white employer’s home, Minny states: “I think if God had intended for white people and colored people to be this close together for so much of the day, he would’ve made us color-blind” (Stockett 215). This statement refers to the fact that, although the racial segregation of white and colored people, especially in the South of the United States and in this case in Jackson, Mississippi, is strongly present in the 1960s, in the white home, the white lady and her maid spend a huge part of their day together in a limited amount of space limited space. Outside the house, however, they will not be seen taking the same bus, visiting the same library or shopping in the same supermarket because “despite being placed in intimate contact with the white family, … spatial segregation was still the rule” (Walton 348). Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the functions of the white home and examine the relationship and interdependence of the white lady and her maid as well as the domestication of the Jim Crow laws. As Sharpless explains, “[d]omestic work … almost always took place in the employer’s home, bringing the African American woman into a white family’s intimate physical space” (141). This integration of black people in white people’s homes led to a racial mix in an otherwise segregated society. Although she lives in the same country as the white family, “when she came into the home of her employer, the African American cook entered a culture other than her own” (Sharpless 141). Dating back to the plantation households, black people, especially women, have always been present in white homes, working for the white family and submissively carrying out their orders. Therefore, “[w]hite southerners could not seem to imagine the white home without surrounding it with images of blackness” (Hale 115). The maid fulfills domestic tasks, such as cleaning or cooking, which the white housewife finds too trivial to carry out herself (Sharpless 130). Of course, it was also a class issue as mostly middle-class and upper-class families could afford to hire a maid. Nevertheless, as already mentioned, also families with a lower income sometimes employed a domestic servant. Hale argues that the white home is the place where past and present are combined and, therefore, segregation is reinforced (87-88). A closer examination of the white home and the relationship between the owners and their domestic workers clearly reveals both “white people’s dependence on, and rejection

of, black people” (Lloyd 264). The white ladies entrust their household and the education of their children to their colored help; nevertheless, they do not want them to use the same bathroom or eat from the same plates. In explicitly pointing out the racial differences, the rejection of black people and the whites’ disapproving treatment of their maids result in a reinforcement of segregation as well as a development of different identities. The white lady and her black maid spend so much time together in limited space. Subconsciously, learn from and about each other. Therefore, “the white home became a central site for the production and reproduction of racial identity precisely because it remained a space of integration within an increasingly segregated world” (Hale 94). Furthermore, the white home fulfills two different functions. On the one hand, for the white ladies, it is their home and private space and one of the few places of authority and power for women at that time. For black women, on the other hand, it is simply a workplace where they have to obey, carrying out their tasks. Nevertheless, they constantly feel the need having to fight for racial justice and respect. Taking the maids’ efforts for granted and treating them like subhuman, white women still have to rely on the helps’ work in the household and the education of their children in order to maintain their lifestyle. Therefore, it can be said that “the refusal of blackness is twinned with dependence on it” (Lloyd 264). However, the relationship between the white lady and the domestic workers is not based on a unilateral dependence but rather interdependence as the black women have to work for them in order to be able to feed their families. Thus, “the white home served as a major site in the production of racial identity precisely because there this racial interdependence was both visible and denied” (Hale 88). Although in public life, Southern society is strictly separated through numerous rules and regulations, at home, the white lady and her black maid are in intimate contact and share various experiences. Consequently, “the increasing segregation of … southern society made the white home increasingly seem like an island of racial mixing in a sea of separation” (Hale 87). Being in the same house with the white lady the whole day, the help knows more about her than anybody else as she unintentionally gets to listen to phone calls or overhears discussions with her employer’s husband or friends while she is working in the house. On the other hand, if the white lady does not show any interest in the help, she does not know anything about the maid’s private life. Besides, having to work the whole day for the white

family, taking care of the children and the household, the help’s own family and housework comes up short. At the white home, the maid has to carry out all kinds of domestic duties and, thus, neglect her own household and family in order to provide an income (Sharpless 130). As a girl, Minny already realizes this problem and worries about it. “But if I was going off to work in somebody else’s house, who’d be looking after ours?” (Stockett 38). This shows that, although the black maid would prefer to perform these tasks for her own family, she has to dedicate most of her day and energy in maintaining the household and caring for the children of the white family. When Minny was fourteen, her mother explained the rules of working for a white woman to her. “You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours …. Remember one thing: white people are not your friends. They don’t want to hear about it” (Stockett 38). With this statement, she makes clear that the white housewife is not interested in the maid’s private life and does not care about her problems. Their relationship is only based on employment and the help is expected not to interfere in any decisions. In addition, she advises Minny not to “hit on her children. White people like to do their own spanking” (Stockett 39). At first, this rule of Minny’s mother sounds bizarre; however, in the second chapter, it already gets confirmed when Elizabeth hits her daughter Mae Mobley on several occasions so hard that it breaks Aibileen’s heart having to watch the innocent child without being able to protect her. Developing the idea of the employment relationship, it is ironic that for the children, the help is the attachment figure and the person who feeds, bathes, and educates them while, for their mother, she is only a domestic servant with no real personality. Nevertheless, she gets assigned such an important task as the raising of her children.

2.2.1 The Kitchen The kitchen is of great importance in The Help as it is the place where various intimate moments, discussions, and decision-makings take place. Therefore it is mentioned 231 times in the novel. It is the maid’s space of freedom, where she is in control and, sometimes, also a place of refuge from the white lady. Thus, the kitchen can be interpreted “as a space through which to understand the constraints of segregation and the accompanying self-assertion of black women” (Walton 346). When Hilly is presenting her new project of the Home Help Sanitation Initiative and

tells Elizabeth that she should build a bathroom for the help in the garage, Aibileen feels uncomfortable and flees into the kitchen. “I go in the kitchen and don’t come out again till I hear the door close after Miss Hilly’s behind” (Stockett 9). Nevertheless, although the help has to work long hours in the kitchen, planning and preparing meals according to the white family’s wishes, for the domestic workers “the kitchen sometimes became the least hostile place in this alien environment, but being in the kitchen could also enhance a cook’s sense of segregation and separation” (Sharpless 142). Thus, the complexity of the kitchen as the maid’s domain with both its positive and negative connotations becomes clear. Interestingly, not only the maids but also Skeeter experiences this protective atmosphere that the kitchen provides and seeks refuge from her mother’s orders. “But mostly, I learned to just stay in the kitchen“ (Stockett 64). However, the kitchen in The Help is not only a place of protection as well as discrimination, but also the space that integrates both races. Firstly, Minny and her white employer Celia Foote share private details in the kitchen, nearly as best friends, cooking together and talking about their marriages and Celia’s miscarriage. Celia asks Minny to teach her how to cook in order to impress her husband and convince him that she can be a good housewife. The employment of a domestic worker is Celia’s secret, as she wants her husband to think that she is able run a household herself. Minny is afraid that Mister Johnny will find out this secret and be angry, so she tries to convince Celia to tell him the truth. However, when Johnny Foote one day comes home early and finds a strange woman, Minny, in his house, he invites her into the kitchen to talk. “Come on, let’s go have us a talk in the kitchen“ (Stockett 138). This is very unusual for Minny, as she is not used to white men talking to her except when giving orders. Secondly, Skeeter first meets Aibileen in Elizabeth’s kitchen and this is where their secret relationship starts. At first, Skeeter only asks Aibileen for advice when answering questions readers send to her “Miss Myrna Column” in The Jackson Journal. Soon after, they meet at Aibileen’s home and do not only talk about household tips, but also about Aibileen’s experiences in working for white families. Skeeter feels uncomfortable sitting in the living room, and so, at their next meeting, she asks Aibileen if they could change into the kitchen as it is warmer and friendlier and Aibileen seems to feel more relaxed. “Could we . . . sit in the kitchen this time?” (Stockett 149). As the story moves on, nearly every evening, Skeeter meets with the other maids in Aibileen’s kitchen, talking about their secret project and listening to

their stories, shielded from the other white people. “I am in the old Jackson kitchens with the maids, hot and sticky in their white uniforms” (Stockett 275). These examples show that the kitchen can also act as a space to reunite white and black people and bring them closer together. Furthermore, important situations happen in the kitchen. Skeeter learns from Aibileen that her former maid, Constantine, had a daughter and that this daughter was white. “I’ve wondered this ever since Aibileen told me about Constantine’s child, way back in Elizabeth’s kitchen“ (Stockett 358). In addition, when their book is finally published and Aibileen goes to work, she is shocked to see Elizabeth reading it in the kitchen. “And when I walk in her house, there Miss Leefolt is reading my book at the kitchen table“ (Stockett 408). The fact that Elizabeth reads the book in the kitchen and not, for example, in the living room is noteworthy as the secret project started in the kitchen and this is also where it ends. Finally, when Aibileen is being fired and has to say goodbye to Mae Mobley, she does so in the kitchen, having a last moment of peace and intimacy. “I take Baby Girl’s hot little hand and lead her into the kitchen“ (Stockett 442). From these examples it can be concluded that the kitchen, a place that at first glance seems to be of no great importance, is indeed a space of security and revelation.

2.2.2 The Relationship Between the White Housewife and the Black Help In the relationship with their colored domestic workers, the white women usually made their status clear and take advantage of every opportunity to demonstrate their different places in the hierarchy. “In their homes, white women used a variety of tools to segregate the African American women who worked there” (Sharpless 141). These methods range from making them eat alone in the kitchen, where they had to use their own plates, to having them use a different bathroom or calling them only by their first name while being addressed with a courtesy title. This difference in addressing becomes obvious in the book itself as the maids’ chapters are only entitled as Aibileen or Minny while Skeeter’s chapters are entitled as Miss Skeeter. Sharpless explains that “[b]ecause of the desire of white southerners for domestic workers, an African American cook’s relationship with her employer hit her with race and racism almost every minute” (133). In the white home, they spend so much time together and, thus,

get to know each other. In public, however, they will never be seen together and the white employer’s behavior also clearly marks her higher status. Therefore, the relationship between them can be seen as “at once both intimate and distant” (Caccavaio 60). With a lower status than men in society and having to follow their husbands’ rule, at home, the white ladies have the control and wielding power over the maids. They enjoyed being the supervisor as “the only people over whom the typical white housewife had any control were her children and her employees” (Sharpless 131). Therefore, they often were more extreme and created new borders inside the white home to demonstrate their superiority. This sensation of superiority can also be examined in The Help. Aibileen, a woman in her fifties, complains about her employer, Elizabeth Leefolt, and the way she bosses her around. “She ain’t but twenty-three years old and she like hearing herself tell me what to do” (Stockett 3). Minny’s description of them shows the trivial topics the white ladies have to worry about in contrast to the maids. “Only three things them ladies talk about: they kids, they clothes, and they friends” (Stockett 6). While the black woman has to go to work in order to secure an income, provide for her own household, and care for her own children when she comes home, the white housewife has nothing to do except meeting her friends as a way of passing her time. Minny also is annoyed by the way white women such as Hilly and Elizabeth depict themselves as hard-working while the only thing they have to do is take care of their appearance and arrange lunch dates with their friends. “Most of em is busy-busy, running errands, acting like they busier than me“ (Stockett 140). Elizabeth complains about her workload because she has “fifteen thank-you notes for the Junior League to do” (Stockett 3). In the meantime, however, the maid has to prepare food, clean the house, care for the children – all tasks that usually a housewife without a job could easily perform herself. In addition, the payment the help receives is miserable, but she has no choice as there is no other employment available. “Miss Leefolt don’t pay but ninety-five cents an hour, less than I been paid in years” (Stockett 4). In addition to low wages, the maids have to listen to conversations of white women talking bad about black people. Hilly, for instance, makes it clear that she rejects living close to them and sees them as a threat. “Do you want Nigra people living right here in this neighborhood? Touching your bottom when you pass on the street?” (Stockett 290). The irony of Hilly’s statement shows the narrow-mindedness of the white housewives. On the one hand, by hiring a maid, she brings a black woman right into

her home. On the other hand, however, she cannot imagine living with her maid’s family in the same neighborhood. By explicitly showing and stating their rejection of black domestic workers, the white housewives were “creating both physical and emotional boundaries between themselves and their cooks” (Sharpless 134). ). This, depending on the intensity, more or less subtle discrimination inside the home was the practicing of the Jim Crow ideology in the South. The white employers required their employees to obey and set strict rules and limitations while they themselves did not feel the need to hold on to them (Sharpless 135). However, they were dependent on the black domestic workers as they carried out duties, as for instance cleaning, doing the laundry or cooking, that a white woman finds too demeaning to do herself. Therefore, “the white employers needed the very physically intimate services that an African American domestic worker performed, from child care to cooking their food” (Sharpless 135). Considering their interdependence, the employer and the employee fought subliminally as “white women sough to control the domestic space and black women resisted in seemingly invisible powerful ways” (Walton 348). Examples of this rebellion are Aibileen’s teaching racial tolerance to the children she raises or Minny’s “special” chocolate cake that she bakes for Hilly in order to take revenge for her appalling treatment. However, the relationship between the white family and the maid cannot be generally assumed as bad since also “bonds of affection between employer and employee were possible and some domestics stayed with a family for decades” (Walton 348). This was also the case with the Phelan family and their former maid Constantine. Although Skeeter’s mother, in the end, treated Constantine disrespectfully, in general, the family and the help seemed to have a good relationship. Skeeter’s father gave her some extra money from time to time and, to make the heat in the kitchen more bearable, he “tried to install one [a ceiling fan] in the tin kitchen ceiling” (Stockett 162). Especially Skeeter and Constantine were very close and even continued to write each other letters when Skeeter left for college. Skeeter’s mother explains to her the unique relationship a white family could have with their help. “They say it’s like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime” (Stockett 372). This kind of friendship between a white woman and her domestic worker can, ironically, also be examined between Celia Foote and Minny, whose mother told her

not to become friends with white people. Coming from a poor family, Celia married rich; however, she does not know how to run a household and, therefore, secretly hires a help to teach her how to cook and keep her company while her husband is at work. In contrast to Elizabeth and Hilly, however, Celia treats Minny like a normal person and even offers her a drink on their first meeting, something that would be unconceivable for other white housewives. “Can I get you a cold drink? … Set down and I’ll bring you something” (Stockett 31). Minny is not used to this special and respectful treatment and is astonished. “I’ve never in my life had a white woman tell me to sit down so she can serve me a cold drink” (Stockett 32). With her friendly nature and “in actively welcoming Minny into her home, Celia not only transgresses the ‘sanitation initiative’, but also its underpinning racist logic” (Lloyd 267). Usually, white women just give orders and want them to be carried out as soon as possible. Celia, however, asks Minny kindly if she could carry out some tasks for her. “Minny, would you mind fetching the mail for me?“ (Stockett 221). Consequently, it can be argued that Stockett uses Celia Foote as a white housewife to reunite black and white people in the white home and demonstrate that there is also another part of society, namely people without racist attitudes. In addition, Celia does not care, or does not even know, about social norms for treating black employees, because when Minny agrees to take the job, she “laughs and the crazy woman goes to hug [Minny]” (Stockett 35). A white woman treating her in such a friendly way and even hugging her is something completely new for Minny. She “avoids this contact as she is aware of the regulations of racial intimacy. Celia, however, is unconcerned with these societal restrictions” (Lloyd 267). Celia, who descends from a poor family in Sugar Ditch, is described as “some kind of white trash” (Stockett 31). This is reflected in her clothing, for example the inappropriate dress she wears at the Junior League Benefit. Thus, this portrayal “alienates her from the other middle-class matrons” (Caccavaio 58) and is, besides the fact that she married Hilly’s former boyfriend Johnny Foote, the reason why the other ladies exclude her. Similar to the exclusion of the black maids from the whites, Celia and Johnny Foot also “live physically and socially outside the inner circle of Jackson’s white elites” (West 54). Therefore, she is not familiar with the other white ladies’ racial behavior and is grateful that Minny keeps her company. “It is Celia’s isolation – her exile – that leads her to notions of racial harmony” (West 54).

With her warm welcome and her kind attitude towards Minny, Celia is “actively overturning the typical roles of a white and black woman in the home” (Lloyd 267). She does not look at her like a second-class citizen as the other white women do, but rather as a friend and is happy that Minny keeps her company. After Leroy has beaten Minny and Celia sees the bleeding cut, she is worried about her and wants to call the doctor. “Minny, that thing’s bleeding. I think you need you some stitches. Let me get Doctor Neal over here“ (Stockett 304). Yet, Celia is not aware of the fact that white doctors only treat white people and not their colored maids. This behavior proves again her good-natured but, to some extent, naïve attitude. Still, she wants to make sure that Minny is fine and will recover. “Alright, but I’m fixing you a cup of coffee and I want you to just take the day off, okay?“ (Stockett 305). Treating Minny with kindness and respect, she “actively blurs the lines between Minny and herself, so that the impermeable dividing line that Hilly and the other whites set up is made porous” (Lloyd 267). Her naivety and natural behavior can be compared to that of a child, as children also do not make any difference between races and, mostly, love their mammies. It is only later, when they are grown-up and employ a black domestic worker themselves, that they become racist like their mothers. Another rule for employers that Celia ignores is that the housewife and the help are supposed to eat in two separate rooms. “Yet another form of segregation existed in the taboo against African Americans and white people eating together” (Sharpless 142-143). Minny’s mother makes it clear to her daughter that the maid is expected to serve the white people their meal at their dining table and then, eat alone in the kitchen. “Rule Number Five: you eat in the kitchen” (Stockett 39). Again, Celia crosses this border and when Minny goes to eat in the kitchen, she naturally follows her and is happy that she does not have to eat alone but wants to keep her company. “But why? I don’t want to eat in there all by myself when I could eat in here with you” (Stockett 215-216). This takes Minny by surprise. She remembers that her former employers did not once ask her to join them but just expected her to stay in the kitchen. “Every white woman I’ve ever worked for ate in the dining room as far away from the colored help as they could“ (Stockett 215). For Celia, however, eating together with the help seems normal and the rules of segregation are incomprehensible to her. “But she has sat down and eaten lunch with me every single day since I started working here. I don’t mean in the same room, I mean at the same table“ (Stockett 215).

2.2.3 The Subtle Power of the White Lady “As managers, white women wielded enormous power over the lives of their African American employees” (Sharpless 131). Minny has experienced this supremacy of the white woman herself and remembers being fired because she questioned the white lady’s order to handwash the clothes before putting them in the washing machine. “That White Lady smiled at me, and five minutes later, I was out on the street” (Stockett 40). This action emphasizes the white women’s authority, and how carelessly they treated their domestic workers. If a maid did not behave to their satisfaction, they fired her and hired a new one. “White people had so much control over African American cooks, from paying their wages to owning the houses that they lived in, that many women may have felt that they have no choice but to cooperate” (Sharpless 140). When Minny was a teenage girl and started waiting on white people, her mother explained to her the importance of obeying and submissively agreeing with them. “You sass a white woman in the morning, you’ll be sassing out on the street in the afternoon“ (Stockett 39). The dependence of the maids on the white employers made it impossible to revolt and express their own opinion, as the mother’s income was also needed badly to feed the family. The white middle-class women, of course, knew about this dependence and took advantage of it. For them, it was the only time they could supervise anyone else and so they “found a common power through their whiteness” (Hale 110). The white ladies were well aware of their superiority and had no scruples making use of it in order to remind the maids of their power. “Holding a firm belief in their own racial superiority within white society, they acted as whites more forcefully than as women” (Hale 110). If the maid did something to the displeasure of her employer, the white woman could ruin her life and that of her whole family. By spreading rumors, the white housewife made sure that the maid would never find a new employment again. This is also nearly the case with Minny when Miss Hilly tells everybody in town that Minny has stolen her mother’s silver and makes sure that nobody will hire her despite her excellent cooking skills. “Said it was cause she’d made sure everbody knew I was a thief. I’ve never stole a thing in my life but she told everbody I did and wasn’t nobody in town gone hire a sass-mouthing thieving Nigra” (Stockett 338). Aibileen is familiar with this destruction of a black maid’s life and explains that “womens, they ain’t like men. A woman ain’t gone beat you with a stick. Miss Hilly wouldn’t pull no pistol on

me. Miss Leefolt wouldn’t come burn my house down” (Stockett 188). Instead, they proceed slowly and subtly, showing her power over the maid and pulling the strings in the background. “No, white womens like to keep they hands clean. They got a shiny little set a tools they use, sharp as witches’ fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gone take they time with em” (Stockett 188). Using her social influence, the white lady carefully ruins the maid’s life step by step; first she loses her job, then her car and her house, and then the same happens to her whole family. In the worst case, the white lady can even have the maid sent to jail, as is the case for Yule May. However, “she don’t do that kind a thing herself. But while the nightmare’s happening, the burning or the cutting or the beating, you realize something you known all your life: the white lady don’t ever forget. And she ain’t gone stop till you dead” (Stockett 188).

2.2.4 Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative Furthermore, Minny’s mother impresses on her the importance of using a different bathroom. “Don’t you ever let that White Lady find you sitting on her toilet” (Stockett 38). This advice is of great importance as, in the worst case, using the “wrong” toilet can be mortal. Aibileen explains the drastic consequences of such inappropriate behavior to Skeeter. “Did you hear about the colored boy this morning? One they beat with a tire iron for accidentally using the white bathroom“ (Stockett 103). Skeeter’s family also has a separate bathroom for the black maid and she remembers that her mother forbade her to use the colored bathroom. “When we were kids, Mother told us she’d spank us if we went in Constantine’s bathroom” (Stockett 60). Hilly influences the other women in town with her initiative and sells it as “a disease-preventative measure” (Stockett 8). Furthermore, she argues that “[n]obody wants to sit down on a toilet seat they have to share with them“ (Stockett 185). Discreetly, she exercises pressure on her friend Elizabeth to build a separate bathroom for the help out in the garage because, according to her, the colored help is dirty and full of diseases. ”It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do“ (Stockett 8). Elizabeth’s lack of moral convictions becomes obvious as, although her husband tells her that they do not have enough money, only to be part of the high society and follow Hilly’s rules, Elizabeth builds Aibileen a separate bathroom.

Dragulescu adds that Elizabeth’s behavior “looks more like a social climbing maneuver and an attempt to please her bridge buddies than a real concern that blacks are a danger to her health” (19). After having installed a colored bathroom, Elizabeth talks with Aibileen about new toilet in the garage and wants to make sure that she does not use the white bathroom again, polluting it with her germs. “But when you do, you’ll go on back there and use that one now, I mean... only that one, right?“ (Stockett 29). When the little Mae Mobley wants to show her mother that she eventually is able to use the toilet and runs to Aibileen’s colored bathroom, her mother is horrified and scolds her. “This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You’ll catch diseases! No no no!” (Stockett 95). Meanwhile, Aibileen has to watch the little girls getting spanked for using the wrong toilet and overhears her employer telling her daughter that her mammy is dirty and diseased. “I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain’t a color, disease ain’t the Negro side a town“ (Stockett 96). The white children become familiar with the racist behavior of their mothers and, as they grow, they eventually start imitating them. Therefore, it can be said that “[t]he white home […] was the site where white children learned racial difference, where the culture of segregation began” (Hale 94). In order to prevent this transmission of black germs, Hilly wants to introduce “a bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help“ (Stockett 9). She promotes her campaign in Jackson and her friends believe her absurd argumentation that “[w]hites can become permanently disabled by nearly all of these diseases because we lack immunities coloreds carry in their darker pigmentation” (Stockett 158). Stockett uses this Home Help Sanitation Initiative to illustrate the racist behavior and rejection of black people in the South. Undoubtedly, Hilly’s campaign is a stark form of discrimination and the “domestication of Jim Crow ideology and practice. Those American laws that legalized segregation in the public sphere are embedded in the home” (Lloyd 263). At the beginning, Hilly hides her real intention and states that a separate bathroom will also be to the help’s advantage by stating that “[s]ome germs carried by whites can also be harmful to coloreds too” (Stockett 158). In reality, however, she is only increasing discrimination against black women in the white home. Her campaign “is clearly as pernicious as the segregation of public places … [as] the private and personal also becomes a site of segregation and racial coding” (Lloyd 263). When Skeeter is in the library, suddenly, she recognizes that Hilly’s initiative, in essence is nothing less than the rules and laws

she read about in the books. “I realize … there’s no difference between these government laws and Hilly building Aibileen a bathroom in the garage, except ten minutes’ worth of signatures in the state capital“ (Stockett 173-174). Hence, it can be said that “the regulation of race in this novel happens in, and through, the bathroom” (Lloyd 263). Banning the maids from the white bathroom, labeling them as diseased, and sending them out into the garage, at first, Hilly’s campaign seems to intensify the rejection of black people in Jackson; however, “as the novel progresses it becomes clear that the toilet initiative actually unravels rather than fortifies racial segregation” (Lloyd 268). It slowly opens the other women’s eyes and they dare to contradict Hilly. Due to Skeeter’s intentional spelling mistake, all the people in Jackson contribute, bringing pots and so, “Hilly’s obsession with toileting literally returns on her lawn and front steps” (Lloyd 268). This action shows resistance against discrimination and that a change is soon to come. Also, it is interesting to examine that the pots had “all different colors and shapes and sizes” (Stockett 287) which can be interpreted as “a reference to the multiracial and multicultural nature of this divided Mississippi” (Lloyd 268). When Mrs. Walters, Hilly’s mother, moves to the old people’s home, Hilly wants Minny to start working for her, however, the maid declines that offer, so Hilly tells her that she would make sure nobody else in Jackson would ever hire her again. As a response to Hilly’s disrespectful treatment of Minny, the maid bakes her the chocolate custard pie she likes so much, however, adding a special ingredient: her feces. She calls it the “Terrible Awful Thing” (Stockett 27). Not knowing that this time it is a different cake, Hilly is positively surprised and eats two slices. Foster- Singletary argues that “[b]y consuming the chocolate pie, Hilly effectively eats Minny’s blackness” (166) she tried so hard to avoid. Consequently, Hilly’s action can be considered as an “ironic but fitting statement of her own vileness” (West 54). At first trying so hard to keep the black waste out of her home, she eventually consumes it. Llyod argues that “[i]t is as though Hilly needs to ingest black waste in order to really process it and the racial meanings associated therein” (269). When Minny reveals the secret ingredient of the delicious cakes, Miss Walter, Hilly’s mother, laughs and advises her daughter: “I wouldn’t go tattling on Minny either, or you’ll be known all over town as the lady who ate two slices of Minny’s shit“ (Stockett 339). This exposure would be the destruction of Hilly’s reputation as she herself appeals to free white homes of the dangerous, black waste. “The persistent association between

blackness and filth … explains why Hilly feels such shame and horror at having eaten the pie” (Foster-Singletary 166). Knowing what Hilly is capable of, Minny is afraid of Hilly’s revenge. “I’m not sorry for the Terrible Awful Thing I done to her. But now that Miss Hilly put her own maid in jail to rot, I wonder what that lady’s going to do to me“ (Stockett 300). However, the special chocolate cake and the fact that Hilly ate it ensures that she will not reveal Skeeter’s and the maids’ secret project, the publication of the book, because she is ashamed and eagerly tries to convince everybody that the city mentioned in the book is not Jackson. Summing up, the white home in The Help is a place where, on the one hand, racial segregation is abolished in a physical sense as especially white and black women spend much time together within the confines of the home. On the other hand, however, it still continues in a mental sense as various forms of discrimination can be found inside the house, leading from the demeaning verbal treatment to spatial separation through the kitchen and colored bathroom. Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative emphasizes this exclusion and displays the domestication of the Jim Crow laws. The relationship between the housewife and the maid is based on interdependence, though, if the maid does something the white lady disapproves, she exercises power and can ruin the help’s life. Nevertheless, the character of Celia Foote demonstrates that this form of relationship cannot be generalized and that also bonds of affection between the employer and the employee are possible, setting aside social restrictions and boundaries.

3 Criticism Although The Help remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for more than one hundred weeks, it also received a range of negative criticism. Critics, especially those who belong to the black community themselves, are in particular concerned about Stockett’s portrayal of the black characters and their relationships with the white protagonists. In their opinion, the novel romanticizes the painful past and is historically inaccurate. Furthermore, they accuse Stockett of defending the white characters by making their behavior seem less racist and, in contrast, using stereotypes for the representation of the black characters. Moreover, as a white author, Stockett was criticized for writing in the voice of black women and, therefore, giving agency to black people. In an interview about her book, Stockett admits that she felt insecure about writing across races. “I'm still worried about that. On the one hand I wonder, Was this really my story to tell? On the other hand, I just wanted the story to be told” (Suddath). In this connection, Barbara Applebaum addresses the topic of white ignorance. She explains that “white ignorance is not only itself a type of white privilege … but also works to safeguard privilege” (38). Moreover, Applebaum points out that the purpose of white ignorance is that white people do not have to worry about the consequences of their behavior or often are not even aware of their ignorance (38). This theory can be applied on Stockett, too. In an interview, she admits that it took many years for her to become aware of her own, white ignorance and the fact that her mammy Demetrie took care of them because it was her profession. “They were paid to be nice to us, to look after us, teach us things and take time out of their day to be with us. As a child you think of these people as an extension of your mother” (Suddath). In addition, it seems that not only Stockett, but also most white employees in the South took this white ignorance as an excuse for not questioning the circumstances of the Jim Crow era and racial segregation, but rather continuing to oppress black people. Therefore, as Duchess Harris states, in The Help, Stockett “substitutes her imagination for understanding”. Furthermore, Stockett denies that her white protagonist Skeeter carries any autobiographical features. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that the two women share many characteristics. However, one can detect not only similarities between their characters, but also regarding their personal lives as well as

their careers. Skeeter and Constantine, for instance, had a similar relationship to Stockett and her mammy Demetrie. In addition, one can detect resemblances regarding the publication of Stockett’s as well as Skeeter’s Stockett novel. On the one hand, Stockett was accused of plagiarism for copying her brother’s maid without permission for the creation of character of Aibileen. This even led to the filing of a lawsuit. On the other hand, Skeeter exploits the maids by interviewing them and using their stories to advance her career and publish her book.

3.1 Defense of Whiteness In her bestselling novel The Help, Kathryn Stockett addresses the very sensitive topic of white-on-black fiction and describes the life of two black maids and a white girl in the 1960s in the Jim Crow South in Jackson, Mississippi. The novel, written by a white woman who gives agency to black maids, received a wide range of differing critiques and opinions. Critics are especially concerned about the topics of white supremacy, historical inaccuracy as well as the defense of whiteness. Therefore, it is essential to examine the question if Kathryn Stockett as a white author, intentionally or unintentionally, protects the white characters in her novel and romanticizes past conditions by making use of stereotypes. Luminita Dragulescu and Valerie Smith take a very skeptical view and criticize the lack of historical contexts and authenticity. Dragulescu judges The Help as “a white-authored black history that validates stereotypes of blackness and sugarcoats the painful common past” (18). Furthermore, she argues that although the actions of the white characters are criticized in the novel, in contrast to their actual cruelties in the past, such as the Jim Crow laws and the measures against the Civil Rights movement, they are portrayed as harmless and innocent (Dragulescu 16). Many critics say that the author protects the white characters while, strictly speaking, it is the narrator. This complexity is also visible in the narrative perspective as the author and the narrator are conflated. Moreover, Smith claims that “the black characters are used to humanize the liberal whites and to frame racial inequality in the context of personal relationships rather than systemic injustice” (31). In her opinion, The Help is “a text about a white woman who usurped black stories” (Smith 31). These opinions have some validity, but are not entirely sufficient. West, however, has a more nuanced view and explains that although Skeeter, the apparent heroine of the novel is white, this does not mean that all white characters are automatically good or even heroes: “Although Stockett frames Skeeter’s heroism in her whiteness, the narrative does not paint whiteness as a universal heroic” (52). In addition, it is only through the help of the black maids and their stories that their book is published. Besides, the white characters, especially the women, except Skeeter and Celia Foote, are depicted as deceitful, evil, and manipulative. Therefore, “Stockett does not salvage the South or white Southerners” (West 52).

Furthermore, not only the white characters are portrayed as bad as there are also parts included when the black characters behaved in an inappropriate manner. Yule May, for instance, commits a crime when she steals Hilly’s ring, even though it turns out to be worthless. Minny bakes a special chocolate pie and makes Hilly eat her feces. Although the black maids commit these deeds as a response to the behavior of their white employers, there is no beatification of the black characters. In the end, however, most white characters, especially Hilly and Elizabeth, are not protected but rather exposed through their mean treatment and racist behavior. Hilly wants to make sure that Minny does not find work again and spreads lies about her. Moreover, when she finds out that Yule May stole her ring, she guarantees that Yule May is imprisoned. This behavior represents the abuse of the justice system by white women. This act of cruelty becomes the turning point, convincing the other black maids to allow their stories to be published in Skeeter’s book. Minny’s chocolate pie eventually saves them from Hilly revealing the real authors. Hence, the white characters are not presented in a good light. As West puts it, “[i]n contrast to the white female hysteria, the black maids, who have risked the most, proceed with calm and courage. In this contrast, readers again see the shallow and perverse world of those in the white inner circle” (West 54).

3.1.1 Writing Black for a White Audience The aspect The Help is most often criticized for is that Stockett as a white person does not know how it feels to be black and has not experienced herself the struggles of black people at that time and, therefore, has no right to write about the inner lives of black maids as matters of fact1. Critics such as Thompson argue that, as a white female author, Kathryn Stockett claims “to speak for and, more importantly, give agency to … [her] black characters” (62). Ebony Lumumba comments that “[w]ith the publication of The Help, Stockett joins a long tradition of white Southern writers creating black characters and their voices within their works” (26). In recent years, there has been a growing intolerance towards white authors assuming the right to write about black people. In her afterword, Stockett admits that she is aware of this

1 However, this is not a new phenomenon as there is enough background material on this topic, see White on Black by John Cullen Gruesser (1992) and The Black Image in the White Mind by George Marsh Frederickson (1971).

difficulty. “I was scared, a lot of the time, that I was crossing a terrible line, writing in the voice of a black person” (450). According to Dragulescu, Stockett’s representation of the life, culture, and history of black women in the South in the 1960s demonstrates insufficient background knowledge while her writing style gives superiority to the white characters (18). “Writing across race is a necessary step in getting to know the Other, but such sensitive ventures require extensive and rigorous research and, most importantly, respectful portrayals” (Dragulescu 18). For a white person, it is difficult to put oneself in the position of a black person because women who are wealthy enough to hire a maid normally need not carry out domestics tasks themselves or experience racial injustices in the white home as well as in society in general. Therefore, Wallace-Sanders agrees that a white author cannot convey authentically the feelings of a black maid at that time and that “[t]he chapters written from Aibileen’s or Minny’s point of view reflect little of their own inner lives as black women or as working mothers” (“Every Child Left Behind” 69). Mills highlights the complexity of the topic and the fact that the experiences and feelings of the black maids are articulated in a novel through a white woman who grew up in Mississippi, looked after by a black maid (1). Considering the imbalance regarding the position in society between black and white people at that time, it is difficult to portray the situation realistically and, as Dragulescu claims, “the problem lies in white authors’ displaying shallow knowledge of other races’ culture and history” (18). Stockett herself admits that a white person cannot comprehend the hardship black women had to endure in this segregated and racist society; however, with her novel, she wants to sensitize her readers to racial injustices.

I don’t presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the 1960s. I don’t think it is something any white woman on the other end of a black woman’s paycheck could ever truly understand. But trying to understand is vital to our humanity. (Stockett 451)

According to Dragulescu, by assuming another personality and writing from the perspective of a black person, one must avoid portraying it according to one’s one beliefs. Writing from an objective point of view is nearly impossible as “the white author exhibits conscious and unconscious habits of white privilege, and his or her racial consciousness has been (mis)shaped by a white-constructed ‘blackness’” (19).

Hence, she argues that in her novel, Stockett depicts “blackness that is filtered through white ideology” (Dragulescu 21). Also Thompson takes the view that, although Stockett assures that she wants to present the pain black women felt at that time, by making use of stereotypes and leaving out cruel events from the past, she protects the white characters (69). “Stockett’s neglect, whether intentionally or naïvely, illustrates the continual struggle African Americans have in some white- authored fictions and racial struggles in the current era” (Thompson 69). West also refers to the protection of whiteness and the problem of white authors subconsciously trying to present their white characters in a positive light as she claims that “white authors represent blackness in ways that tell us much more about whites than blacks and oftentimes convey a base and unredemptive picture of whiteness” (West 41). However, one should not forget that the aim of The Help is not to retell history but to entertain readers and raise their awareness of racial inequalities and injustices. Nevertheless, questioning if The Help is realistic, Travis argues that it would be more authentic if Stockett had included more historical background. However, “ironically, the more historically accurate the novel became, the less likely it would be to seem ‘realistic’ to its target audience: white women like the protagonist and author” (Travis). The Help was a bestseller and received excellent critiques, mostly, however, from white readers, who commented that through the novel, they were able to get an insight into the lives of black women and to realize the pain and injustice they had to endure. Especially the characters Minny and Aibileen, working mothers, maids, and mammies, helped them to understand how their own employees might feel working for a white family (Watson 3). The novel contains aspects that are appealing for its target audience, white women, as they can identify with Skeeter, who comes into conflict with pleasing her family and friends and fighting against racism in her hometown (Travis). They understand the message of the story and start reflecting on their own behavior. Nzegwu points out that “[w]hites believe they have finally grasped the existential pathos of black southern life in the 1960s, but blacks beg to differ” (8). This shows the different perception of the black and white audiences, as black readers especially criticize the “romantic misrepresentation of these hierarchical relationships” (Hardison 131). However, I argue that this view is not entirely intensified because Hilly is especially depicted as the merciless, white employer, who treats her black maids without respect. Although the relationship between the white employer and the black employee was governed by oppression, Stockett wanted to

make her audience aware of the equality of both races as she states in her afterword: “Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought” (451).

3.1.2 Romanticizing the Past Looking at it as a historical novel, the accusation against Stockett is that she romanticizes the past. However, critics do not perceive the book as a novel but rather as a history book. This depends on the signals the book sends in order to make the reader respond to it as a historical novel. The Association of Black Women Historians criticizes it for using this serious topic primarily to entertain white audiences and “finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment”. As a response to that, Sharpless makes clear that “Stockett is a novelist, not a historian” (Bush). She explains that Stockett’s book tells “a story loosely based in history. And her interpretation is what much of the general population of the U.S. will see, not our carefully crafted academic monographs bristling with footnotes“ (Bush). Furthermore, Sharpless highlights the significance of the novel and points out that also white authors have the right to write about topics concerning both races. “What I think The Help … gets right is the importance of telling one’s own story … [W]hile an outsider’s perspective is different from an insider’s, it doesn’t have to be all wrong“ (Bush). In addition, Jones argues that even though the Ku Klux Klan as well as the White Citizens Council are not mentioned in the novel, they are referred to in various incidents as for example the blinding of Robert Brown, black people getting hurt, arrested or losing their jobs for fighting for racial equality as for sit-in trial at the library when the police just turned the German shepherds loose or the maids’ stories about their work in the white homes (14). Furthermore, Thompson faults the novel for its historical inaccuracy and whitewash, claiming that “Stockett wrote a book that only minimally treaded the line of black agency and was historically reflective” (68). In her opinion, historical incidents, for example the murder of the civil rights activist Medgar Evers, are only treated marginally, so that the novel offers the readers “a romanticized view from a white perspective of female solidarity” (Thompson 70). Bringing white and black women together, mutually fighting against racism and in the end achieving a common

goal, is the often criticized feel-good content that pleases white readers and makes them feel as if, by reading the novel, they have contributed to change in society, too. Nevertheless, this is not the case as there are numerous white women showing no gender solidarity for black women, but, instead, marginalizing them. Therefore, the concept of intersectionality, a Black feminist criticism established by Kimberle Crenshaw, has to be applied in order to analyze this topic accurately. It describes a combination of different forms of discrimination, especially gender and race. Crenshaw explains that she developed this theory “because it sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis” (139). Hence, in their interpretations, many critics did not consider intersectionality for a careful analysis of the novel. Crenshaw, however, claims that intersectionality plays an important role as it is the interplay of discrimination of race as well as gender and thus, has an even greater impact on the victim.

Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated. (Crenshaw 140)

Therefore, it is essential to take this criticism into account when analyzing The Help and especially the relationships between the white and black characters. The combination of intolerances concerning their sex as well as their race leads to intersectional discrimination. “Race and sex … become significant only when they operate to explicitly disadvantage the victims; because the privileging of whiteness or maleness is implicit, it is generally not perceived at all” (Crenshaw 151). The black maids in the novel experience exactly this disadvantage as they suffer racism and sexism in their daily lives in society, at work as well as at home. This behavior “implies that the boundaries of sex and race discrimination doctrine are defined respectively by white women's and Black men's experiences” (Crenshaw 143). In her editorial, Nzegwu argues that “[w]hites hope that The Help has revealed the common humanity of all, while African Americans fear that the crudely sketched images of themselves may end up reinforcing old stereotypes” (Nzegwu 8). Black and white readers have a different approach to that topic and, therefore, a different perception, which leads to a disagreement in interpreting the novel. Critics, such as Dragulescu, claim that “[t]he novel displays an insufficient, if not perfunctory,

knowledge of black history and life” (16). Furthermore, they complain that The Help glosses over racial conditions in the past, and, instead of incorporating secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan, the antagonists in the story are the members of the Junior League Benefit, snobbish housewives who treat their black employees disrespectfully (McHaney 80). In an interview with Ellen Bush, however, Vanessa May comments that these critiques are not valid as “terror and violence were not limited to political marches or assassinations. There were plenty of both in white homes, not just in the South and not just in the 1960s“ (Bush). In addition, one has to keep in mind that Stockett did not attempt to write a history book but a fictional tale. In her afterword, she emphasizes this fact again and states that “The Help is fiction, by and large” (Stockett 450). Also Rebecca Sharpless defends the book regarding its accuracy. “After more than a decade of researching and writing about domestic workers, I thought that Kathryn Stockett got a lot right “ (Bush). Therefore, close reading is essential in order to be able to interpret the novel correctly. Nevertheless, most detractors, especially those who belong to the black community, are concerned that the novel sugarcoats the painful past and romanticizes the relationship between the white employer and the colored maid because Mae Mobley and Aibileen as well as Skeeter and Constantine appear to have a very strong bond. This depiction of intimacy between the black maids and members of the white family attracts criticism as Hardison, for instance, is concerned about “Stockett’s romanticization of the interracial relationship between benevolent employers and their loyal domestic workers” (138). In her afterword, however, Stockett addresses these relationships and the closeness and intimacy between white families and their mammies.

Not just that life was so much worse for many black women working in the homes in Mississippi, but also that there was so much more love between white families and black domestics than I had the ink or the time to portray. (Stockett 451)

Stockett is accused of writing about the lives of black people without being able to understand their culture and history. Thompson even states that “throughout her portrayal of black female domestics, it is evident that she never fully grasped the experiences of black women” (69). Black readers in particular are “concerned with Stockett’s ethics of representation” (Dragulescu 18). In their open statement about The Help, the Association of Black Women Historians denounce Stockett for

misrepresenting the circumstances black maids had to work in. “The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers”. Furthermore, according to them, the relationships between the maids and the white men in the novel are not authentic as the black employees often experienced domestic violence and sexual harassment in the white home. In addition, they emphasize the absence of the Civil Rights movements, which contributes again to the protection of whiteness and the lack of black agency. According to Thompson, Stockett also “ignores the continual threat of sexual harassment and violence within these homes, therefore neglecting the experiences of real-life black female domestics” (63). Nevertheless, this is not true as the maids tell Skeeter in their secret stories about their abusive white male employers. “Angry stories come out, of white men who’ve tried to touch them. Winnie said she was forced over and over. Cleontine said she fought until his face bled and he never tried again“ (Stockett 258). Nevertheless, one has to admit that although Stockett addresses sexual harassment at the white home, she does not put it in the forefront, but only refers to it indirectly. Another point of critique is Skeeter’s superiority over the maids. Hardison claims that the plot is not about the hardship and life of the black maids working for white families, but rather that it deals with Skeeter’s professional advancement and her liberation from the provincial life in Jackson in order to realize her dream as an author and leave for New York (132). “Frustratingly, Stockett portrays the white protagonist as the ‘savior,’ confidante, and, most worryingly, the spokesperson for the black characters” (Dragulescu 16). The three protagonists are not portrayed as equal but Aibileen and Minny rather remain in the background and appear as inferior to Skeeter (Thompson 70). However, West argues against this criticism and explains that “Stockett does not attempt to transform the ugliness and evil of her Southern white characters into a romanticized story of Southern loss and longing” (53). I agree with West, as the white ladies in particular are depicted as having a bad character and being mean to their employees. Furthermore, they are easily influenced. Elizabeth, for instance, builds a separate bathroom for Aibileen out in the garage immediately after Hilly has launched her Home Help Sanitation Initiative. In addition, they are described as miserable mothers, in contrast to the loving mammies, and cruel manipulators who feel pleasure ruining their maids’ life. “Through the lens of Aibileen and Minny, we view the presumed best of white Southern society, particularly its women, and the best leaves a disturbing picture” (West 54). Although,

by publishing their book, Skeeter helps them to be heard and uses the maids’ stories to advance her own career, it is through their experiences and descriptions that she gets a better understanding about racial segregation. Therefore, despite the criticism mentioned before, the black characters are not in the background but play a major role in the development of Skeeter and the novel in general (West 53). “The maids’ narratives have caused the veil to be lifted; Skeeter sees whiteness as it appears to the maids, and she finds no counternarrative” (West 53).

3.1.3 Making Use of Stereotypes Travis argues that The Help “traffics in stereotypes and fails to present the complexity of race relations”. Thompson states that by trying to describe the stories and inner lives of black women, in reality, the white authors are only protecting their white characters and using stereotypes for their black characters, such as the devoted Mammy figure or the violent black husband (70-71). According to Smith, these black characters are integrated in order to “humanize the liberal whites and to frame racial inequality in the context of personal relationships rather than systemic injustice” (31). The Association of Black Women Historians is especially concerned about the portrayal of the mammy figure as it “allowed mainstream America to ignore the systematic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them”. However, as already discussed in the previous chapter, only to some extent do Aibileen and Minny correspond to the stereotypical images of the devoted, selfless mammy, who dedicate their lives to white families and prefers the white children she takes care of to her own. Stockett herself experienced the strong bond a white child can have with her mammy. Demetrie, the black maid of the Stockett family, encouraged her to believe in herself, strengthened her self- esteem, and cared for her like a second mother. Therefore, she is worried about transmitting a false image and not being able to convey the feelings she had for her mammy. “I was afraid I would fail to describe a relationship that was so intensely influential in my life, so loving, so grossly stereotyped in American history and literature” (450). Another aspect concerning the protection of the white characters is the portrayal of black men in the novel, especially in contrast to the white male characters. “Stockett disguises her desire to defend whiteness while revising Southern

history by identifying the most violent persons in the Jim Crow South as black men” (Thompson 64). This is especially true for Minny, who suffers because of her father, who was an alcoholic, and her husband Leroy, who drinks too much, beats her, and even threatens to kill her (Thompson 64). When Leroy comes home after being fired, “[h]e throws the kids in the yard and lock me [Minny] in the bathroom and say he gone light the house on fire with me locked inside” (Stockett 437). Domestic violence is present in Minny’s family as her husband tyrannizes her. “Leroy screamed at me all night, threw the sugar bowl upside my head, threw my clothes out on the porch” (Stockett 304). In addition, to demonstrate the power over his wife, Leroy tells her, “If I didn’t hit you, Minny, who knows what you become” (Stockett 413). Minny is aware of the violent nature of her husband and his need to exert his power over her. ”He was just beating me for the pure pleasure of it“ (Stockett 304). The only time Leroy refrains from beating Minny is when she is pregnant. Therefore, she sees her pregnancy as a form of protection and tries to become pregnant as often as possible. “Usually he doesn’t mess with me when I’m pregnant … Thank you for this baby, I pray. Because that’s the only thing that saved me, this baby in my belly. And that’s the ugly truth” (Stockett 406, 413). However, the Association of Black Women Historians wants to make clear that Stockett shows a completely wrong image of black men in the Mississippi South, distancing itself from this stereotypical portrayal. “We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent”. In opposition to the violent, alcoholic black men, the white men Minny communicates with are portrayed as caring and kind (Thompson 64). “Just as she does with her female characters, Stockett depicts blackness in Leroy as the concrete vessel for the abnormal” (Foster-Singletary 162). This depiction of black manhood contrasts with the description of the white males as, for instance, Johnny Foote is portrayed as the affectionate husband and just wants his wife to be happy, not caring about her terrible household skills. Moreover, Skeeter’s father is depicted as the thoughtful employer, who cares about their maid Constantine and installs a fan for her in the kitchen, drives her home, and gives her some extra money. This stark contrast can especially be observed between the white and the black husbands in the novel. Celia Foote, the white lady Minny works for, is afraid that her husband will be angry when he finds out that she secretly hired a maid. Nevertheless, when Minny eventually meets Mister Johnny, he talks with her in a friendly way and

even compliments her on her cooking skills (Thompson 64). “You’re the best cook I’ve ever known” (Stockett 138). Furthermore, in opposition to Leroy, who demands that Minny works and earns money, Mister Johnny accepts that Celia stays at home and, through his confession to Minny, he makes clear that he truly loves his wife (Thompson 64). “Minny, I don’t care if Celia never lifts another finger for the rest of her life … I don’t care if she can cook. I just want her here” (Stockett 139). This illustration of the caring and supporting white husband and Leroy, the black, violent and demanding husband who loses his job reveals the supremacist ideology of the white characters. Therefore, “Stockett’s novel suggests that white men should not be blamed for past abuses against black women and instead places black men should be seen as the only threat to black women” (Thompson 64). In addition, May argues that in The Help, violence never occurs inside the white home, but in the black family, as Minny and her children are only beaten by Leroy but not by the white people. However, the truth is that white employers often abused and raped their black maids (Bush). This sexual harassment is included, however only marginally, in the maids’ narratives. Nevertheless, not all white male characters are described as kind and caring. Although they may not beat their wives, some of them are also portrayed as violent and cruel, as for instance the two men who blinded Robert Brown because he accidently used the white bathroom or the white man Aibileen’s son Treelore was run over by. In addition, afterwards they treated his dead corpus without dignity by simply throwing it on the pickup (Stockett 153). Moreover, domestic violence is not only present in the black families but also, for instance, in the Leefolt family as Elizabeth repeatedly slaps her daughter. Summing up, it can be said that in The Help, black characters, especially the black men, are often depicted as violent and abusive, whereas their white counterparts are portrayed as caring and kind. However, this is not true for all the characters as there are various acts of cruelty by white people mentioned, such as the white men who mistreated Treelore and Robert Brown, Hilly’s, Elizabeth’s, and their husbands’ harsh ways of treating their own children in contrast to Aibileen’s affection and devotion for the white children she takes care of. Also, the way Skeeter’s mother treats their mammy Constantine is an example for intersectionality. Although the relationship between the white employer and the black employee is romanticized to some extent, there are also references to sexual harassment and the way the white ladies treat their maids reflects the hardship they had to endure at this time. Moreover,

one should keep in mind that The Help is fiction and, therefore, historical events and circumstances remain in the background.

3.2 Autobiographical Aspects Without doubt, similarities between Kathryn Stockett and her white protagonist Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan can be examined. Although Stockett denies any resemblance, an attentive reader can detect autobiographical features included in the novel regarding Skeeter and her own mammy Demetrie. First of all, they both grew up in Mississippi, had a mammy, and wrote a book called The Help, or simply Help in Skeeter’s case. Stockett states that her inspiration to write this novel was her childhood and the fact that she was educated by her mammy as well as growing up in a white family in the segregated South and only later understanding this racial injustice and inequality. This self-reflection is incorporated in the novel and, especially, the character of Skeeter. Thus, Stockett used the process of writing The Help to make sense of her own past. Smith and Watson find this a common practice and clarify that “[m]any life writers take liberties with the novelistic mode in order to negotiate their own struggles with the past and with the complexities of identities forged in the past” (Smith/Watson 12). These struggles with their childhood and life in Mississippi, becoming aware that the person who was there for them every day, in fact, was paid for loving them and was also treated as inferior by society, can be observed in Stockett as well as “her seemingly autobiographical character, Skeeter” (Lumumba 32). Furthermore, Smith and Watson explain that “[m]ediated through memory and language, ‘experience’ is already an interpretation of the past and of our place in a culturally and historically specific present” (31). Stockett assimilates her life in the South through her novel. She processes her experiences of growing up with her mammy Demetrie, living in a segregated society, and becoming aware of the racism happening on a daily basis. The same happens to Skeeter as she is reflecting on her friendship with Hilly and Elizabeth and the way they treat their maids as well as her relationship with her mammy Constantine. Therefore, by processing their experiences, “narrators become readers of their experiential histories, bringing discursive schema that are culturally available to them to bear on what has happened” (Smith/Watson 33). Evidently, the character of Skeeter includes many characteristics of Stockett, but also of the middle-class, white woman in the South. Hence, Hardison claims that “[a]s the novel’s white interlocutor, Skeeter is a proxy for Stockett as well as the writer’s presumed readers” (135).

3.2.1 Skeeter as Kathryn Stockett Firstly, as already mentioned, Skeeter as well as Stockett both grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, where they spent a major part of their lives. Then, their careers were very similar as they both attended Southern universities; Stockett attended the University of Alabama and Skeeter the University of Mississippi (Laws 2012 6). For both of them, racial segregation was the norm as they were used to rules and the fact that there were different buses, supermarkets, libraries or hospitals for white and colored people. It was only then, when she was writing the book, however, that Stockett became aware of the different rules for both races. Skeeter, just like Stockett, realized the gravity of the racial injustices when she talked to the maids and listened to their stories about their work in white homes. This aspect is also included in the novel, where Skeeter states, “[t]hat was just a normal part of life, the rules between blacks and whites” (Stockett 448). Furthermore, Stockett admits that now she is ashamed of her behavior as a child, making fun of colored people. “I remember pitying them. I am so embarrassed to admit that now” (Stockett 448). McHaney claims that “[t]his authorial self- referentiality can be detected in similar attitudes shown by Skeeter” (90). For Skeeter, it is normal to borrow a book from the library; however, Aibileen has to remind her of the fact that colored people are not allowed to enter the white library. “You know colored folks ain’t allowed in that library” (Stockett 154). For the first time, Skeeter becomes really aware of the racial inequality in her hometown. She is ashamed of her naïve thinking and her privileged position in society. “I sit there a second, feeling stupid” (Stockett 154). Nevertheless, the key moment is only later, when Skeeter finds the book about the Jim Crow laws in the library and is shocked about these regulations. Stockett is ashamed of her childlike thinking, too, and, in her afterword, admits that it was only in New York when she realized the injustices black people had to live with on a daily basis. Thus, as Lloyd points out, “Skeeter’s narrative clearly mirrors Stockett’s own” (259). Secondly, the Stockett family as well as the Phelan family employed black maids and both women were raised by a mammy, Skeeter by Constantine and Stockett by Demetrie. Stockett’s inspiration and motivation for writing the novel were her childhood she spent with her mammy. Lloyd infers that Stockett “sees the novel as a response to that particular past, a form of both personal and cultural memory”

(259). Again, also Skeeter was driven to write the novel by the loss of her mammy and Constantine’s mysterious disappearance. Therefore, Thompson refers to Skeeter’s story and the process of writing the novel in memory of Constantine and to realize her dream of becoming an author as “a fictional autobiography of Stockett’s own life” (Thompson 69). In addition, Duchess Harris points out that it is “pretty transparent that Stockett is writing about herself. We learn this in the novel’s epilogue“. In her afterword, Stockett admits that, except for Demetrie, she was not familiar with the black community. The black maid, however, was her attachment figure, role model, and friend. “My siblings deny it, but I was closer to Demetrie than the other kids were” (Stockett 448). As with Stockett, Skeeter felt a deep attachment to Constantine as the two were very close. The mammy cheered her up when she was sad, strengthened her self-esteem, and listened to her, just like a friend. Thus, Thompson argues that “Skeeter’s assessment may be more of a reflection of Stockett’s personal admiration of and disregard for her own experiences with black caretakers throughout her life” (68). In addition, both women leave Mississippi and move to New York. At nearly the same age as Skeeter, with twenty-four years, Stockett goes to New York. Looking at her childhood and hometown from a distance, she starts writing the novel. “I wrote The Help while living in New York … The distance added perspective” (Stockett 450). Skeeter also leaves for New York to do the same, namely to realize her dream and work as an author. Besides, Stockett had difficulties to publish her novel and spent five years finding a literary agent. She admits that “the official record is 45, but really it's probably more like 60 rejections. And then finally Susan Ramer at Don Congdon agreed to take it on” (Suddath). For Skeeter, it was not easy to convince Elaine Stein that her book will become a success, too. At home, when she is typing the maids’ stories, she realizes that they told her how it really felt to be working for a white family instead of going into raptures about the sweet, white children they take care of. “I’d expected the stories to be sweet, glossy. I realize I might be getting more than I’d bargained for” (Stockett 151). The same happened to Stockett and her work. Both novels do not only share the title but also the range of reactions they received. On the one hand, critics praised The Help for its eye-opening plot and move against racism. On the other hand, however, it also received many negative comments, especially from black critics, who are concerned about the fact that Stockett is adapting the voice of black people. The same is true for Skeeter’s book as the

feedback in the novel ranges from positive responses to indignation, particularly from the white housewives who feel involved and attacked. In addition, also the relationship between Skeeter and Constantine has many similarities to Stockett and her own mammy Demetrie.

3.2.2 Demetrie and Kathryn Stockett Not only can one detect resemblances between Stockett and her autobiographical protagonist Skeeter, but also the relationship between Demetrie and Stockett is very similar to that of Constantine and Skeeter. Also Thompson points out that “[a]lthough placed in a different time setting, the relationship between Skeeter and Constantine may reflect Stockett’s own ideals of her relationship with Demetrie” (69). In her afterword, Stockett addresses the fact that for her and her family, it was completely normal that Demetrie was always there, waiting on them. Nobody even thought of asking her how it felt to be a black woman, living in the segregated South and working for a white family. When Stockett was grown-up, she thinks about this question and regrets never having asked her mammy about this situation. “I’ve spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book” (Stockett 451). In the novel, Skeeter also wonders how it feels to serve white people and asks Aibileen if she wishes to be able to change things. She tries to find out the reason for Constantine’s disappearance and gets a better understanding of the maids’ situation when she writes down their stories. Just like Skeeter, Stockett also wrote her book in memory of her mammy, Demetrie. “A native Mississippian, Stockett indirectly illustrates her personal nostalgia for the old South and black mammies in her novel” (Thompson 68). It seems that the character of Minny especially was created by including characteristics of Stockett’s beloved mammy Demetrie. First of all, their appearance as well as their family situation are the same. “Demetrie was stout and dark-skinned and, by then, married to a mean, abusive drinker named Clyde” (Stockett 447). Interestingly, Minny’s husband Leroy is also represented as an abusive alcoholic and Aibileen’s husband, who left her when their son Treelore was still little, is called Clyde. Furthermore, Stockett praises her fantastic cooking skills. “Her cooking was outstanding” (Stockett 448). Again, Minny is also described as an innate kitchen talent. Stockett remembers that, as a child, she enjoyed “listening to her stories and

watching her mix up cakes and fry chicken” (Stockett 448). In Celia’s kitchen, Minny is frying chicken, too, and baking cakes. Even Minny’s famous caramel cake that she bakes for the Junior League Benefit is inspired by Demetrie. “You felt loved when you tasted Demetrie’s caramel cake” (Stockett 448). Nevertheless, there are also similarities to Aibileen. Stockett mentions that Demetrie considered the Stockett siblings as her own children. “If anyone asked her how many children she had, she would hold up her fingers and say three. She meant us: my sister, Susan, my brother, Rob, and me” (Stockett 448). This is reminiscent of Aibileen, who tells Mae Mobley about her seventeen children. Furthermore, just like Skeeter, Stockett did not feel pretty in her adolescence and had a low self-esteem. “I wore glasses and I had stringy brown hair” (Stockett 448). Demetrie, however, cherished her and helped her build self-confidence. “She would stand me in front of the mirror and say, ‘You are beautiful. You a beautiful girl,’” (Stockett 448). This encouragement can be compared to the way Constantine tries to cheer up Skeeter and the positive phrases Aibileen tells Mae Mobley. In her afterword, Stockett explains her motives for writing the book. The main reason was her mammy, Demetrie. Thinking back of their time together, now, as a grown-up, she has a better understanding of the complexity of the situation in the South at that time. “Never fully understanding the tumultuous world of a black woman in Mississippi, Stockett constructed a false reality in which Demetrie satisfied all her infantile needs while ironically never having any needs herself” (Thompson 68-69). In her perception, the maid dedicated herself to the Stockett family, educating the children as well as maintaining the household. They had the impression that Demetrie had a carefree life, working for their family. “There were several years when I thought she was immensely lucky to have us. A secure job in a nice house, cleaning up after white Christian people” (Stockett 448). Stockett’s description of Demetrie as the caring maid who sacrifices herself for the white family corresponds exactly to the image of the stereotypical mammy figure. “Demetrie had no babies of her own, and we felt like we were filling a void in her life” (Stockett 448). Moreover, Skeeter thought that she is the only child for Constantine, too. It is only later that she discovers that her mammy had a daughter of her own and, thus, a life outside of the Phelan family. Furthermore, Stockett’s naïve thinking as a child that Demetrie had to feel lucky because she could work for a nice, white family reflects the attitude of many white, middle-class Southerners. Thompson also states

that “Stockett possesses a white, privileged perspective of her youthful encounters with the family maid, Demetrie, thus causing her to neglect the complexity of the African American female experience in the Deep South” (69). When Demetrie told her about her work at the cotton field and her life as a maid, serving white people, Stockett admits that at that time, she was “too young to realize that what she was telling us wasn’t very funny” (Stockett 447). Just like Skeeter, during the process of writing her book and reflecting on her childhood and Demetrie, Stockett then realized the implications of racial segregation and how these rules influenced the lives of the colored people.

3.3 Stolen Stories In addition to the autobiographical aspects, there are more parallels between Kathryn Stockett and her white protagonist Skeeter, as both women steal the stories of black maids to make money out of it. Stockett uses her brother’s maid, Ablene Cooper, as a role model for her fictional character Aibileen. Not only do they have near-identical names, but they also have more outstanding characteristics in common. Skeeter, similar to Stockett, exploits the maids of Jackson and uses their stories to publish her book and advance her career. After that, she leaves for New York while they remain imprisoned in the white households or even lose their jobs.

3.3.1 Kathryn Stockett’s Stolen Story Kathryn Stockett is accused of having stolen the life and story of her brother’s maid, Ablene Cooper and turned it into the character of Aibileen in her novel. Therefore, Cooper filed a lawsuit against her and sought damages of $75,000 for the appropriation of her name and experiences as well as emotional distress (Robertson). Her lawyer comments that “[i]t’s about hypocrisy … She feels Stockett is just one more white woman who has exploited an African-American” (Churcher). Stockett, however, puts emphasis on the fact that the memory of her own mammy Demetrie inspired her to write The Help. Cooper, however, does not believe her. “Ain’t too many Ablenes” (Robertson). Furthermore, when she read The Help, she detected more and more similarities between herself and the character of Aibileen. “’When I started to read the book, I said, ‘This is the closest thing to my life I ever seen. It’s gotta be me’” (Churcher). It is true that Ablene Cooper and Aibileen Clark share many striking similarities. Firstly, and most obviously, although their names are spelled slightly different, they are pronounced the same. Her brother’s maid even gave her the idea for the different spelling herself. “I introduced myself to Kathryn when I first met her at her brother’s house that way: ‘Aib-e-leen’” (Churcher). Furthermore, both women are middle-aged, have a gold tooth, and work as maids for a white family in their hometown Jackson (Goldenberg). Just like Aibileen looks after Mae Mobley and her little brother, Ablene also takes care of the two children of Stockett’s brother Robert and his wife Carroll. She has worked for 12 years for them and they assured her their support in this matter (Robertson). In addition, just like the devoted mammy in the

novel who educated seventeen children, Ablene has raised eighteen or nineteen children during her career (Churcher). Stockett even included a very traumatic experience, namely the death of Ablene’s son. Right at the beginning of the novel, the reader learns about Aibileen’s loss. “I lost my own boy, Treelore, right before I started waiting on Miss Leefolt” (Stockett 2). After five months of grieving for the tragic accident of her son Treelore, Aibileen is hired by the Leefolt family. Except for the cause of death, the situation is very similar to Ablene’s. “I just cried and cried after I read the first few pages … My son, Willie, had leukaemia and died when he was 18, in July 1998, three months before I went to work for the Stocketts” (Churcher). She feels personally attacked and exploited by Stockett’ appropriation of her characteristics and experiences, especially with regard to the negative ones. “I felt the emotions in my heart all over again. Kathryn copied parts of my life and used them without even asking me” (Churcher). Moreover, the two women share the nickname “Aibee” (Robertson). Cooper states that she introduced this nickname to the children she takes care of as it is easier to pronounce, too (Churcher). In the novel, Mae Mobley also refers to Aibileen as “Aib-ee” (Stockett 5). Furthermore, also the racist behavior of the white ladies such as Elizabeth or Hilly shows parallels to Cooper’s recollection of working for a white family. “We ate on the back porch. You had to have your own fork, spoon, plate and cup” (Churcher). This statement is very similar to the stories Aibileen tells Skeeter about her work at the Leefolt family. In addition, the story of Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative references Cooper as she experienced a similar situation. Just like Hilly, her former employer was worried about the transmission of colored germs and diseases. Therefore, the idea of building a colored bathroom for Aibileen out in the garage is refers back to Cooper’s own experience (Churcher). She remembers that, “[j]ust like in the book, there was a half-bathroom at the back for the coloured help” (Churcher). Another reference that is included in the novel that Cooper recalls is the one to civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Cooper also remembers Evers’ death and the civil rights protests (Churcher). Hence, the similarities between Aibileen and Ablene are salient, although Cooper wonders how Stockett got to know so many details about her life. Stockett and Cooper have only met on two occasions at her brother’s home and barely talked. Hence, Stockett must have learned about the maid’s life by talking about her with her brother and his wife and through observation on one of her visits.

“I never told her about myself. She was quiet, standoffish, but she’d watch me” (Churcher). Stockett, who at first denies that the novel includes any references to people other than her mammy Demetrie, admits in an interview that she incorporated familiar names. “When I was writing this book, I never thought anyone else would read it so I didn’t get real creative with names. I just used people I knew” (Churcher). Although Aibileen in the novel is presented as a caring, thoughtful, and likeable person, Cooper finds it “embarrassing” that the character does not stand up against the racist treatment of her employers and their friends (Robertson). The most insulting scene in the book is for Cooper when Aibileen compares her complexion with a cockroach. Cooper is upset about this inappropriate comparison of a black person with an insect. “I think she is just a racist. She claims she respects black people but she just ran all over me” (Churcher). Interestingly, Stockett sent Cooper a copy of the book and a note telling her that she did not create the character of Aibileen with her in mind (Lumumba 26-27). Nevertheless, in her afterword, Stockett emphasizes the fact that “The Help is fiction, by and large” (450). Also, Amy Einhorn from Penguin Group USA, the publisher of the book, refuses to go into detail about the lawsuit and dismisses any reference to Ablene Cooper. “This is a beautifully written work of fiction, and we don’t think there is any basis to the legal claims … We cannot comment further regarding ongoing litigation” (Robertson). In addition, Stockett’s lawyers deny any resemblance with Cooper. "The Help does not use Mrs Ablene Cooper's name. It uses the name Aibileen Clark. It does not paint a picture of Mrs Ablene Cooper, middle- aged in 2011. It paints the picture of Aibileen Clark, middle-aged in 1962” (Child). Finally, the court case was dismissed and Cooper’s suit failed. David Hudson Jr. from the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University explains the reason. “We’re talking about a work of art … There are strong First Amendment protections” (Robertson). As a response to these accusations, Kathryn Stockett claims that their former maid Demetrie served as the inspiration and role model for the characters of Aibileen and Minny. Nevertheless, Lumumba holds the view that “Stockett’s perception of the separation that exists between her, the voices she creates, and the communities from which these voices derive is problematic to the legitimacy of her work” (27). In an interview with Claire Suddath, Stockett, again, puts emphasis on the influence of her childhood and the loss of her own mammy as the motive for writing The Help.

I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York City. We didn't have any phone service and we didn't have any mail. Like a lot of writers do, I started to write in a voice that I missed. I was really homesick — I couldn't even call my family and tell them I was fine. So I started writing in the voice of Demetrie, the maid I had growing up. She later became the character of Aibileen … As I wrote, I found that Aibileen had some things to say that really weren't in her character. She was older, soft-spoken, and she started showing some attitude. That's [how another character] Minny came to be. (Suddath)

Although she certainly included many memories of Demetrie and the time they spent together, the resemblance between Ablene Cooper and Aibileen Clark is noticeable. Also, Cooper’s lawyer states, “I’m sure she did have a close relationship with Demetrie, … [but] the similarities with Ablene Cooper seem very striking” (Robertson). Concerning these similarities as well as the common stories and experiences of both women, Stockett refers to the appalling conditions and racist treatment the maids had to cope as, for example, eating from their own plates in the kitchen instead of using the same plates as their white employer. After reading the book, readers commented that, for them, their maid is part of the family. Stockett, however, is uncertain about this claim, as she knows how black maids are often treated at work. She stresses again the motive for her book by referring to these rules of segregation. “You look at all these rules in place in the '60s — the separate bathroom, the separate plate and cup. That's not how you treat a member of the family. And that conundrum is what got me started on the real plot of the story” (Suddath). Nevertheless, it seems as if she is personally searching for arguments to minimize her plagiarism.

3.3.2 Skeeter’s Exploitation of the Maids Similar to Stockett’s stolen story, Skeeter also exploits the maids and uses their narrations in order to achieve her goal, namely working as an author and publishing her first book. Hence, Skeeter, again, can be seen as Stockett’s alter ego, who steals the stories of the black maids. Just like Stockett, she changes the names of the characters in her novel and their hometown Jackson becomes Niceville. On the one hand, the interviews about the maids’ experiences open the eyes of some white people in Jackson and make them realize the hardship the domestic servants have to endure. On the other hand, however, women such as Hilly or Elizabeth feel attacked and fire

their maids. This is also the reason why Aibileen has to leave the Leefolt family and say good-bye to her beloved Mae Mobley. The maids’ and Skeeter’s only solution to protect their secret identity is the story about Minny’s Terrible Awful Thing, the special chocolate pie she served Hilly. After that, Hilly is so ashamed about having eaten two slices of the cake that she tries to convince everybody that the novel does not take place in Jackson. As the novel progresses, the complexity of the situation in the South in the 1960s becomes clearer as the reader is not only offered the perspective of the white population, but also the black community. West explains that “Skeeter’s visits to Aibileen’s house reveal the more serious and critical lens through which blacks see whites” (53). As a child, Skeeter felt loved by her mammy and associated black women with affection and warmth. Now, however, she has to experience also the negative feelings the black women have towards white people (West 53). As she crosses the line between employer and confidante and gets a better understanding of the black community, at first, she is astonished as the majority of the maids appear very cold and express their distrust. Gretchen, one of the black maids whom Skeeter wants to interview for the book, tells her what she really thinks about white women like her. “Look at you. Another white lady trying to make a dollar off of colored people” (Stockett 258). She is the first one who dares to speak out loud what the other black women were thinking and what is the sad truth. Just like Stockett, Skeeter uses the maids to make money by selling the book and their stories. Nevertheless, this phenomenon is not new as, for ages, white women used the knowledge of their servants for their own purposes. Black maids were known for their excellent cooking skills. Thus, white women used their employees’ recipes in order to publish a cookbook (Sharpless xxv). Therefore, as Hardison points out, “black women have been used historically to help construct white female self-authorship” (140). This is also true for Skeeter. First, she only asked for advice concerning housework for her column. Later, however, her request is more serious and demanding. Skeeter wants to pursue her dream to become a writer and takes on a small job at The Jackson Journal. She writes the Miss Myrna column giving household tips. However, as a white woman who never had to carry out tasks such as cooking or cleaning, she has no experience in this field and is unable to answer the readers’ questions. Thus, she asks her friend Elizabeth Leefolt’s maid, Aibileen, and secretly uses her household tips for her answers. On the one hand, this emphasizes again the

stereotypical perception of black women as innate caretakers and their broad knowledge concerning housework. On the other hand, it also demonstrates the incapability of white middle-class women to fulfill these tasks and to maintain a household. Furthermore, it shows Skeeter’s exploitative behavior as she, “with her own version of The Help, profits from Aibileen and Minny’s stories in more ways than the maids themselves” (Hardison 139). While the readers of The Help become aware of the fact that it is Aibileen who is knowledgeable about domestic work, the readers of the Miss Myrna column will not learn about the secret help and Aibileen’s tips will not be acknowledged (Hardison 139). This situation is very similar to Stockett’s as her brother’s help, Ablene Cooper, also served as the inspiration for one of the protagonists but did not receive any recognition. Nevertheless, in contrast to Stockett, Skeeter, to some extent, realizes how exploitative her actions are. “It sounds unfair, doesn’t it, me taking your answers and acting like they’re mine” (Stockett 79). However, this insight does not make her change anything, but she even decides to publish a book about Aibileen’s experiences of working for white families. In order to realize her project, Skeeter asks Aibileen for a big favor, namely to tell her about how it feels to work as a black maid for white families, serving them day after day, cleaning up their homes, educating their children, and overhearing their conversations about building a separate bathroom out in the garage for the colored maid in order to avoid getting in contact with her germs. Smith argues that although Skeeter may not be aware of her exploitation, by using Aibileen’s household tips and the maids’ stories, she acts just like Stockett and other white authors who have gained a profit from the intellectual property of black people (29). In their telephone calls, Skeeter tries to convince Elaine Stein that her book will stand out from the other novels about racism. Stein, thus, gives her a chance and tells her to choose a different starting point. “Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else” (Stockett 71). However, Skeeter cannot come up with a good topic and, in the end, it is Aibileen, who is the originator of the book’s theme when she tells her about her son’s dream of publishing his own book. “He even start writing his own book, bout being a colored man living and working in Mississippi. Law, that made me proud” (Stockett 2). Skeeter is dissatisfied with her own situation as well as lacking a good idea and an interesting topic to write about. When she hears about Treelore’s project, she sees potential in it and wants to interview her friends’ maids in order to narrate the story from a different angle. “Seeing her own life as uninteresting, she exoticizes

the lives of women who are the victims of racial, gender, and economic oppression within the system of Jim Crow segregation” (Smith 29). Fascinated by the opportunity to publish her own book, she decides to use Treelore’s idea and continue it by writing from a female point of view and narrating about the black women’s lives (Smith 29). “Black women’s memories thus launch the plot of the narrative and Skeeter’s own career trajectory” (Smith 29). The same is true for Kathryn Stockett. By telling stories from the point of view of the maids and addressing the topic of racial segregation and the experiences of black servants, her novel became a bestseller. Nevertheless, Stockett includes her own memories and experiences and, inclusively, states that the story she tells is fictional. By using Treelore’s project as the base for her own novel, Skeeter, on the one hand, steals his idea and, as already mentioned, follows the tradition of white women adopting the knowledge of their black servants and using it for their own profits. On the other hand, however, one has to keep in mind the fact that Treelore is dead and could not finish his project. In addition, Aibileen is fond of the idea that Skeeter wants to continue his book and, thus, help black people to get heard. Of course, in this context, also the topic of black agency has to be addressed. Hence, Skeeter, the author, serves as the catalyst as well as the medium that enable the maids’ stories to be published and read by a larger audience, including white readers. This creates the impression that black people cannot speak for their own. Nevertheless, one has to keep in mind that, at this time, it was difficult or nearly impossible for black authors to publish a book of this kind. Therefore, Skeeter can also be seen as the heroine, who gives voice to the black maids. Dragulescu is concerned about Skeeter’s “portrayal as the white savior who takes personal risks (while risking her subjects far worse) to make the downtrodden black life known to Northern white audiences” (20). The reader learns more about Skeeter’s struggles and worries while writing the book than about the maids’ fears. Hence, Dragulescu concludes that “the protagonist, the heroine, is Miss Skeeter and not the help” (20). Furthermore, Aibileen is doing the majority of the work and writing down her stories while the only thing left for Skeeter to do is to type them. “At first, I’m disappointed that Aibileen is doing most of the writing, with me just editing” (Stockett 152). However, McHaney clarifies that although Skeeter, due to her privileged position as a white woman, gets the chance to publish her own book, an opportunity refused for Aibileen, the stories are “nonfictions, not romances of any sort” (87).

The topic of black agency is one of the most criticized aspects of The Help. A white woman giving voice to black people and, thus, representing them as weaker and dependent on white people, may be polarizing. Minny also addresses this by confronting Skeeter. “What makes you think colored people need your help?” (Stockett 164). For her in particular, it is hard to admit that, at least in some areas, the maids are dependent on white people, in this case Skeeter, who is given the opportunity to share their experiences with a bigger audience. Dragulescu perceives the collaboration of white and black women of a different class at that time as unrealistic. Above all, the fact that they would invite a white woman into their home and share their personal experiences and feelings with her seems problematic (20). “That would have gone against a long-standing and historically justified fear and distrust of whites even in what appeared as a pro bono endeavors” (Dragulescu 20). When the other maids learn about what happened to Yule May, Hilly’s maid, who stole a worthless ring in order to be able to send both of her twin sons to college as Hilly denied lending her money and was sent to jail, Minny convinces them to fight racial injustice and they agree to share their stories with Skeeter and help her to publish the book. Nevertheless, Aibileen and the other maids do not only share their experiences with Skeeter because they want to help her, but rather because it has benefits for both sides. By sharing their stories, they hope to raise awareness and sensitize society to racism and racial inequality (Smith 30-31). However, for the black maids, it could have ended far more dangerous than it did for Skeeter. At the beginning, Aibileen does not feel capable of telling Skeeter about the negative experiences she gained during her time as a maid. Thus, she writes down her stories and reads them out loud to Skeeter. It becomes clear that it is hard for her to talk about her situation. Smith explains that “[f]or the maids, this project is more an outlet for the pain, creativity, and agency than a simple exercise in compliance” (31). By sharing their stories and experiences, they can give vent to their feelings and their oppressed frustration. For Minny, equal rights for black and white people are not the primary goal, but he priority is respectful treatment. She knows herself how it feels to be treated as inferior by white people and wishes that her children will not have to experience the same. “But truth is, I don’t care that much about voting. I don’t care about eating at a counter with white people. What I care about is, if in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing the silver“ (Stockett 218).

Aibileen perceives Skeeter as a nice person as she does not behave like the typical white lady who does not pay attention to her maid’s feelings. “[S]he the kind that speak to the help” (Stockett 4). Skeeter’s involvement and her role as an interviewer is, on the one hand, due to her project because she wants to publish the stories in her novel. On the other hand, however, she serves as an understanding and supportive listener for the maids (Dragulescu 21). When Hilly tries to convince Elizabeth and Skeeter of her Home Help Sanitation Initiative, Skeeter feels embarrassed and is ashamed that her friends talk about such topics, especially in front of the help. She notices that they have hurt Aibileen’s feelings and asks, “Do you ever wish you could … change things?” (Stockett 10). Although Skeeter wants to appear as sympathetic and caring by asking this question, Aibileen perceives her as very naïve. “I look at her head on. Cause that’s one a the stupidest questions I ever heard” (Stockett 10). This short conversation shows that also Skeeter, who tries to put herself in the maids’ position, has not fully grasped the complexity of the situation in the South at that time and, as a privileged white person, she does not feel the real impact of racial segregation like the maids do in their everyday life. Minny is astonished about Skeeter’s suggestion to interview them about their work in order to make people aware of the bad conditions. “Why you even care about this? You white” (Stockett 164). In Minny’s experience, white employers have not cared about matters such as racism or racial segregation. Therefore, Stockett also illustrates the hatred black employees feel for their white employers, who treat them badly, and to white people in general because of the racial inequality in society. Gretchen makes this disapproval clear to Skeeter when she tells her the real opinion of the other colored women Skeeter wants to interview. “They hate you. You know that, right? Every little thing about you But you’re so dumb, you think you’re doing them a favor” (Stockett 259). She expresses her distrust and destroys Skeeter’s naïve thinking that the colored women will agree unconditionally and risk their life in order to help a white woman to pursue her dream. “The colored women coming in here, they’re just playing a big trick on you. They’ll never tell you the truth, lady” (Stockett 259). Nonetheless, Skeeter tries to convince the maids that the project has a beneficial effect on their social status and makes white people realize the injustices black people suffer. “We want to show your perspective … so people might understand what it’s like from your side. We – we hope it might change some things around here” (Stockett 164). Minny, however, is very skeptical and does not trust the

white woman at the beginning. “What you think you gone change with this? What law you want to reform so it say you got to be nice to your maid?” (Stockett 164). Again, Skeeter and Stockett share their intentions as they both actually hope for a change, but also see a personal benefit in their publication. Nonetheless, one has to be careful to distinguish between Skeeter and Kathryn Stockett. The reader can identify with Skeeter as she tries not to be racist, but still cannot fully understand the life of the maids and what they have to go through everyday. They experience racism on a daily basis and, thus, fear the actions of white people. However, Skeeter cannot fully be blamed for her attitude because she grew up in this society. One the one hand, she raises her voice against Hilly and protects the maids. On the other hand, however, she uses the maids’ stories to advance her own career as a writer and not only because she wants them to be heard. Hence, there is a fine line between really caring about them by trying to help them and exploiting them by using their stories in order to push her own career. In the end, still, she is the only one really benefiting from the publication of the book and leaves for New York. Aibileen, however, loses her employment and has to start over again. At the beginning, it is obvious that Skeeter is not aware of the dangers and the risk she puts the maids at. Although, if anybody finds out about their secret project, she can also get into trouble, but the consequences are a lot more severe for the maids than for her. This is due to the fact that the white ladies, who are the employers of the maids, can use their subtle power in order to ruin the lives of the maid and her family. Later, however, Skeeter worries about Aibileen and realizes that she has placed her at risk. “What if Elizabeth or Hilly catches us at what we’re doing? What if Aibileen gets fired, sent to jail?” (Stockett 156). The reader becomes aware of Skeeter’s inner struggles and her guilty conscience as she knows that the punishment for the black woman will be definitely more severe than for her. “God, would they beat her the way they beat the colored boy who used the white bathroom? What am I doing? Why am I putting her at such risk?” (Stockett 156). At their secret meetings in Aibileen’s kitchen, they are afraid that somebody will notice what they are doing. Aibileen especially is very careful because she knows what can happen to her if the wrong person finds out about their project as she heard cruel stories of black people getting punished for fighting against racial injustice. “I see open, honest fear on Aibileen’s face. Slowly the voices outside dissipate down the road. I exhale but Aibileen stays tense” (Stockett 145).

It is a matter of common knowledge that white people eliminate everybody who tries to revolt, as it was the case with the civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Therefore, at the beginning, Minny is very skeptical and does not trust Skeeter. She thinks, her interviews are a trap and she wants the maids to get into difficulties. “Maybe you just want me to tell you all this stuff so I get in trouble… Medgar Evers, the NAACP officer who live five minutes away, they blew up his carport last night. For talking” (Stockett 164). Minny has experienced herself the consequences of not sticking to the rules of white people and racial segregation. “You know what’ll happen if people catch us? Forget the time I accidentally use the wrong changing room down at McRae’s women’s wear, I’d have guns pointing at my house” (Stockett 164). Therefore, when Aibileen first tells Minny about the book and asks her to contribute, Minny refuses to help and tries to persuade Aibileen to stop talking to Skeeter because she is concerned about her friend. “I love Aibileen, I do. But I think she’s making a king-sized mistake trusting a white lady. And I told her, too. She’s risking her job, her safety” (Stockett 136). In contrast to Aibileen, Minny is more realistic and dares to speak to Skeeter in a harsh manner. By doing so, she wants her to realize the severity of the situation and the risk the maids run in order to publish the novel. “I do it. I just want a make sure she understand, this ain’t no game we playing here” (Stockett 165). This realization takes some time, but through interviewing the maids and writing down their stories, Skeeter does not only get a better understanding of the maids’ lives, but also learns a lot about herself and her family. “In this world of white privilege and rule, the white protagonist, Skeeter, emerges into self-realization through her relationships with the black laboring underlings” (West 44). Skeeter notices that their project is not only about her, but that Aibileen also sets her hope on the book to change the maids’ situation. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own self, it hasn’t occurred to me that Aibileen might be as thrilled as I am that an editor in New York is going to read her story” (Stockett 153). Although spending everyday together with black maids since her early childhood, she sees them from her limited, white perspective and, thus, as Smith argues, “fails to recognize how little she knows about the women who have worked for her family and friends” (29). This recognition happens only later, when she realizes that the help knows private details about her employer and overhears every conversation at the white home. She feels ashamed of things she thoughtlessly said about black people, perhaps also to please Hilly and

Elizabeth and be part of their group. “She tells me that I once commented that colored people attend too much church … I cringe, wondering what else I’ve said, never suspecting the help was listening or cared” (Stockett 154). Aibileen tells her stories about the terrible conditions encountered when working for white families. Although Skeeter is shocked about this information, she needs it to understand better the job of a black maid and, thus, being able to describe it in her book. The maid informs her “[a]bout Mae Mobley using the garage bathroom, how Aibileen can’t keep her lunch in the Leefolt’s refrigerator. Small details I’m privy to now” (Stockett 156). Skeeter is now sensitized to racist treatment and observes the different behavior of white ladies towards their black help. “Hilly raises her voice about three octaves higher when she talks to colored people. Elizabeth smiles like she’s talking to a child, although certainly not her own. I am starting to notice things” (Stockett 157). This process is important for Skeeter’s self-knowledge as well as it helps her to gain a better insight into the economic as well as private situation of the maids, especially Aibileen’s. Aibileen is represented as the patient, caring mammy, who carries out her tasks carefully without being unsettled by the racist behavior of her employers. This comportment, however, is not an indicator for her weakness, but rather shows her strength and self-control to endure these conditions (Smith 35). This behavior can also be detected at the end of the novel. When their book has been published and has become a bestseller, Skeeter leaps at the chance to leave her hometown and starts a new life as a writer in New York. However, when Elizabeth realizes that a chapter in the book is about her and her demeaning treatment, she fires Aibileen. Nevertheless, Aibileen is satisfied and feels that she has completed the work her son started as well as that she has fulfilled his wish that the stories of the black people are heard (Smith 31).

But at the same time feeling, in a way, that 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 it. And freer than Miss Hilly. That woman gone spend the rest a her life trying to convince people she didn’t eat that pie. I think about Yule May setting in jail. Cause Miss Hilly, she in her own jail, but with a lifelong term. (Stockett 444)

One can argue that, in the end, the sense of freedom and satisfaction is unrealistic: Aibileen loses her job as a mammy and must leave behind the children she cares for. Even though Skeeter makes sure that Aibileen can take on the Miss Myrna column, a

job that Aibileen enjoys, one can assume Skeeter may show a racist behavior, as the column was, in fact, a pejorative work assignment. For Aibileen, however, this work presented as a great achievement. Summing up, upon closer examination one can detect striking similarities between Skeeter and Stockett on the one hand and Aibileen Clark and Ablene Cooper on the other hand. Their personal histories as well as their professional careers are nearly identical. Moreover, as with Stockett, Skeeter uses the stories of black women for her own benefit and, by doing so, she puts the maids at risk. While they have to live with the consequences, Skeeter leaves for New York in order to start her career as a writer.

Conclusion In conclusion, The Help is a novel that polarizes and evokes controversial opinions. As Stockett has already pointed out many times, her motivation for writing this novel was the strong bond she had with her former mammy Demetrie. Thinking back of her childhood and the situation in the South, she realized the hardship black people had to endure and attempted to overcome her white ignorance. Thus, with her book, she wanted to raise awareness and sensitize her readers to racial discrimination. One can argue that she was successful, at least with regards to her white audience. Many black readers, in contrast, feel offended and are concerned with the novel’s representation of black life. Stockett explains that she processed her own experiences and used them for the creation of her characters. Although she denies it, a close observation shows that Skeeter represents Stockett herself, as both women share numerous characteristics as well as a similar story. Also Skeeter’s relationship with Constantine has resemblance to Stockett’s own mammy. Additionally, both women show an exploitative behavior in their dealings with black maids. On the one hand, in the novel, Skeeter uses the black maids’ knowledge and memories for her job at the local newspaper as well as the publication of her book. On the other hand, in real life, Stockett did the same. As the comparison demonstrates, she copied her brother’s maid, Ablene Cooper, and created the character of Aibileen. In addition, Stockett is accused of defending the white characters by presenting them in a good light and using stereotypes for the black characters, such as the devoted mammy figure or the abusive black husband. By conducting a careful analysis of the main characters, it can be concluded that Aibileen, Minny, and Constantine carry some features of the stereotypical mammy figure, especially with respect to their appearance and knowledge regarding childcare and cooking. Nevertheless, it is not true that they prefer the white children they take care of to their own. They have a close relationship with their white charges, but do not love them more than their biological children. Therefore, when interpreting the novel, it is essential to keep in mind that the black mammy is a fictional figure created by white authors. Concerning the portrayal of the black male characters, it can be said that they are often depicted as violent and uncaring, especially in contrast to the white husbands. Yet, there are also references to several acts of cruelties committed by white characters, especially concerning racial segregation. Moreover, the narrow-

mindedness of the white housewives, Hilly and Elizabeth in particular, as well as their harsh way of treating their children stands in contrast to the affection and patience of Aibileen and the other mammies and emphasizes their will power. Furthermore, although the relationship between the white employer and her help is shaped by interdependence, if the maid does something to the disapproval of the white lady, she will subtly exercise power over her and punish the maid as well as her family by ruining their lives. In order to analyze this behavior, it is important to take the concept of intersectionality into account. White women are working against black women and not showing any gender solidarity. Therefore, the maids experience not only racial but also gender discrimination. This theory is reflected in the way the white housewives treat their colored maids. Elizabeth Leefolt and Hilly Holbrook, in particular, correspond to this concept and Hilly’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative serves as the domestication of the Jim Crow laws. Nonetheless, Minny’s relationship with Celia Foote serves as a counterargument and indicates that these connections cannot be generalized and a good rapport between black and white is possible despite racial segregation. Finally, critics claim that The Help is inaccurate and not historically reflective, but romanticizes past incidents. Nevertheless, this is a reader-response problem, as critics perceive the book as a historical novel rather than fiction. When one reads the novel through the lens of genre, however, it becomes obvious that critics are sometimes wrong or partly wrong, because they have not read the novel closely enough. Therefore, close reading and a careful analysis are essential in order to notice that the book is more complex than one might think at the first glance. Still, writing a novel about racism is a difficult balancing act between history and fiction and, as Howell Raines puts it, “there is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation”.

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