So this week, I began the first few pages of Kathryn Stockett's The Help. I heard that the movie was great and the book was even better, so I decided to try it out. Because I'm only a few pages into the novel, I don't quite know yet what it's about or even what sort of tone the book has. Therefore, I shall instead focus on the setting of the novel.
The Help takes place in August of 1962 in Mississippi. Though it may not seem like too long ago, the social customs of the region were drastically different then they are today (thank goodness). Its a time when racial discrimination was out of control, and the Civil Rights Movement was taking place. The main character, a black maid named Aibileen, raises a white woman's child. The mistreatment Aibileen undergoes in the white home she works in is appalling, and its startling to consider that this sort of abuse happened frequently only fifty years ago. She is underappreciated, underpaid, and disrespected. I'm inferring that some aspects of the novel will focus on how she is treated in society, and I am hoping that she will rise above the mistreatment and prove to all the hidebound prejudiced characters in the novel that she is just as good a person as anybody else, regardless of her race. I am eager to get farther in the book and watch her grow as a character.
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