A Reflection on The Help Jeanette Pfeiffer 12th Grade

The choice between conformity and independence is one that every person must make at one point or another in his or her life. This truth has been explored in many novels and is frequently exhibited in the lives of the characters. In almost any written work, the main character must choose between two given paths. In The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Eugenia Phelan (Skeeter), must choose between exposing the truth behind the treatment of domestic servants or simply ignoring it as her peers do, take into consideration her environment, and finally uncover her true identity through this decision.

Skeeter Phelan must choose between exposing the truth, and risk being ostracized, or remaining complacent with the social norms of Mississippi in the early 60s, yet ignoring the inequality between the colored domestic help and white employers. She chooses to expose the mistreatment of the help by writing a book about the reality of being a domestic servant. She secretly interviews a dozen maids in her hometown of Jackson Mississippi and writes down all of their experiences in cleaning up after white families and raising white children. Skeeter is continually faced by the prejudice and ill treatment of colored help by her peers. Being unable to...