The Help #5

At the end of the book, we find out that Skeeter's book is now a best seller. Her hard work and sacrifice paid off in the long run as all the maids mentioned in the novel receive royalty payments for their help with the novel. In the end everything works out, though a lot of sacrifice was made. Their were many themes in this book, including race, gender, education, and class. I believe race and gender dominated this book. Much of the issues that I found in this book were due to someone's race. The conversations that described how blacks carry diseases whites don't. Also how dependant most of the white people are in this book of their black maids. Kathryn Stockett does a good job going into detail about how tough life for these maids really was. I also saw a lot of stereotypes about gender. Mostly from Skeeter's mom, who liked to think that finding a man was more important than getting an education. How being a housewife is what women should be doing. In the community, tensions between whites and blacks ran high as the whites tried to make sure that the blacks knew they were of a lower economic class than all the other whites were, whether that was the case or not. After taking US History last year, I believe I had a better understanding of what was going on in this book. It was fun to go back and actually know what Stockett was talking about, like the Jim Crow Laws and the Civil Rights Movement taking place. All in all The Help was a solid book that I would recommend to anyone.