The Help - 1st set of Questions/Answers by Susan

My long wait on the 'hold' list at the library is over! I finally received my copy of The Help a few days ago and couldn't put it down!

Discussion on the first set of questions:

On Minny's mama's advice or rules - just reading them makes me sad and mad and shake my head, that there was a time that people were treated like this and that mothers had to teach these rules to their daughters. Minny followed her mother's advice pretty well, all except for the sassing of course! Minny's strong personality lost her quite a few jobs over the years. She sure knew how to cook though, and I would get hungry just listening to what she was making, fried chicken, pork chops, biscuits, all except for the chocolate pie, I would have to pass on that!

When I was reading Minny's many uses for Crisco, I thought to myself - I need to write some of these down! My favorite one was - lights get cut off, stick a wick in it and burn it like a candle.. and after all that, it'll still fry your chicken.

Like Minny, Skeeter also had a strong personality. She knew what she wanted to do and did not want to compromise her goals or beliefs to please others. Skeeter went off to college and accomplished what she set out to do, bring home a degree, instead of what her mother wanted her to come back with - a husband (albeit both would have been nice, too). Skeeter eventually sacrificed a lot - her place in society (Jr. League, bridge club), marriage to the senator's son, all of her friendships, and even her hometown, but she had the satisfaction of doing the right thing, and ultimately her dream of moving to New York City to become a writer was her reward.

Skeeter wanted to be a writer and had to start somewhere, so she scoured the newspaper ads which were separated by gender - the female jobs paying much less than the male ones. The separation of the ads has changed, but men still make more money than women in many jobs today.


~posted by Susan of patchwork reflections