The Help Rhetorical Analysis

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Secrecy in “The Help” In the novel “The Help,” the author, Kathryn Stockett, portrays the life of black maids living in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s. These women work very hard and encounter many issues in their lives regarding their color and beliefs. Skeeter Phelan, the main character and protagonist of the story, is upset by how the maids are treated while at work. She decides to interview them about their lives as maids working for a white family in Jackson; however, they must keep their project a secret because they could face punishment or even death if someone found out. Stockett uses the idea of secrecy and keeping a secret between the characters throughout the novel in order to contribute to the novel’s universal theme…show more content…
Often times throughout the novel, townspeople such as Hilly Holbrook suspected that there was something odd occurring. Hilly was very suspicious of Skeeter because she saw that Skeeter had the Jim Crow Laws in her satchel. Skeeter never divulged the secret to Hilly that she was supporting and collaborating with the maids. During their meetings, the women would constantly look at the door to make sure that nobody saw them. The women were fearful that they would get caught and killed like Medgar Evers. Due to this element of fear, none of them, including Skeeter, left anybody a clue as to what they were working on. For instance, Skeeter’s mother asked her what she had been spending so much time writing about and Skeeter replied that she was writing about Jesus. This is significant because Skeeter would not even tell her family what she was working on. Also, the maids never divulged to their bosses, who in some cases, are family to them. When the interviews are finally finished and are being compiled into a book, the maids changed their names and the people’s names that they work for in order to ensure that nobody finds out the book is about Jackson. The most prominent secret, though, was that the author of the book chose to be “Anonymous.” The women’s choice to keep themselves a secret affected the plot because when the book was published, townspeople
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