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Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

The Help

by Kathyrn Stockett

2009

Novel

Historical, African American

Returning home from college in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, Skeeter Phelan, with the help of two maids, writes a book that challenges the racist treatment of domestic help in the South. Steering its readers from laughter to sadness, and doubt to hope, The Help depicts one of the most fundamental battles for equality in United States history, from the perspective of women in the household.

Recently graduated from Ole Miss, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a privileged daughter of a cotton plantation owner, returns home to Jackson, Mississippi with the goal of breaking into a writing career. Living in the South in the early 1960s, Skeeter is pressured to conform to the ideals of being a proper southern lady and securing a husband. Instead she snags her first job at a local newspaper, the Jackson Journal, writing the housekeeping advice column, despite her lack of knowledge on the subject.

Skeeter seeks the help of her friend's maid, Aibileen. It is common in the 1960s for a white household to hire an African-American maid to raise the children and clean for a small wage. But with Skeeter's direct experience of the Jim Crow laws and a letter from a New York publisher, Skeeter starts to write a more hard hitting story: the stories of the domestic servants of the South. Aibileen agrees to tell her story and recruits her friend Minny, a saucy maid who is repeatedly fired for back talk. While outside, the civil rights movement is just gaining momentum, the three meet in Aibileen's kitchen at night, documenting the experiences of the community's maids.

During her interviews, Skeeter is reminded of her beloved maid, Constantine, who had disappeared with no explanation before Skeeter returned home from college. She realizes the prejudice that she was brought up with and begins distancing herself from her old friends, who seem oblivious to the social inequity.

Eventually more maids agree to tell their stories and Skeeter publishes her book anonymously. The stories— ranging from instances of brutal abuse to mutual love—make her book a best seller, giving the African American maids a voice. Although many recognize that Skeeter wrote the book, she is able to deflect the social reproof and secure a job in New York City, while the community of Jackson is forced to acknowledge its inequality.

Unlike many stories about the civil rights movement that materialize in the southern streets and the public square, The Help is a story about the fight that took place in the privacy of the household. The characters are multi-dimensional, demonstrating both compassion and ignorance, love and hate within a single conversation.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Stockett, Kathyrn. "The Help." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0235.
APA 7th
Stockett, K. (2015). The Help. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Stockett, Kathyrn. "The Help." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.