The Help 2

In “The Help”, different people living in Mississippi during the civil rights movement tell their stories which overlap into one. In almost every chapter, the narrator changes. Two characters carry out the same idea that relates to the time period. Minny is a black woman who just found a job as a maid, and Skeeter is a white woman who tells her childhood story. Their stories both have one thing in common: the whites are nice to the blacks.

Minny needs a job desperately if she is to make enough money to buy food. She finds a cleaning job with a woman who she thinks is crazy. Miss Celia is not crazy, but Minny is not used to her bosses, let alone whites being nice to her. Miss Celia is new to the town but is very friendly to everyone. I think that she is great and very nice. I would want to work for her. She gives a very high pay for those times, and is very flexible. She also knows when she needs help as she asks for a cooking lesson from Minny every day. Minny has never worked for someone this nice before so she doesn’t really understand that Miss Celia is being nice. She stays with the job because she is paid well. I think that she secretly likes Miss Celia because she talks about her all of the time. But that is the story she is telling to the reader so she may not be saying all of that because she likes her. Minny just does not know what to think when people go against the community and against everything she knows.

Skeeter is a white woman who misses her old house cleaner terribly. Constantine left while she was in college but she was a big part of little Skeeter’s life. Skeeter, although she lives in Mississippi during the civil rights movement, never mentioned that Constantine was black. I am pretty sure she was though, because she had a separate bathroom (this bathroom issue has come up a lot in the book). Constantine’s race may not have been mentioned because Skeeter hardly ever noticed. She treated her as a mother and always went to her for advice or just to talk. She seems like she was very nice. But it was interesting how, even though Skeeter grows up in a community that is racist, she never seems to mind that Constantine is black. Maybe this is why she leaves or is fired: because Skeeter’s mother doesn’t approve of her daughter having such a close relationship with a black woman.

Minny and Skeeter are completely different people with such different backgrounds. Even their one similarity is different. They are living in a difficult time but they seem to be the best at having good relationships with different races. That is what I like about them. They are open to actually being nice to others. I think that people nowadays should take this lesson from them: to be open and not care about someone’s appearance.