English Language 3 - 2022

Practice

TASKS ON THE HELP, BY KATHRYN STOCKETT

1. AUTHOR

a. Look for information about the author. What do we know about her?
b. Can you establish connections between the author’s life and the plot of the novel?

2. SETTING

a. Where and when is this story set?

b. Read the following extract from chapter 2.

I get on number six bus that afternoon, which goes from Belhaven
to Farish Street. The bus today is nothing but maids heading
home in our white uniforms. We all chatting and smiling at each
other like we own it – not cause we mind if they’s white people on
here, we sit anywhere we want to now thanks to Miss Parks – just
cause it’s a friendly feeling. (p. 13).

Analyse it and focus on:

The maids:

 Who are they?

 What are they like?
 Why do they feel “like we own” the bus?
 What does the “friendly feeling” tell us?

Miss Parks:

 Who was she?

 What did she do and when?
 In which way does mentioning Miss Parks throw light on the context of the novel?
 What does the “Miss” anteceding her surname reveal? In other words, how does
Aibileen feel towards Rosa Parks?

c. Read the following extracts from chapter 2.

Down the road from Belhaven is white Woodland Hills, then

Sherwood Forest, which is miles a big live oaks with the moss
hanging down. Nobody living in it yet, but it’s there for
when the white folks is ready to move somewhere else
new. (p.12. Bold is ours).

So Jackson’s just one white neighbourhood after the next and

more springing up down the road. But the colored part a town,
we one big anthill, surrounded by state land that ain’t for sale.
As our numbers get bigger, we can’t spread out. Our part of
town just gets thicker. (p. 12. Bold is ours).

Analyse the extracts and think:

 How is Jackson presented?

 White and coloured is a constant distinction made throughout the novel. Focus on the parts
in bold. How is this distinction portrayed? What does it reveal?
3. CHARACTERS

a. Who are the main characters?

b. What is the relationship between them?

AIBILEEN

a. Focus on chapter 1 and answer:

 How would you characterise the relationship between Aibileen and Mae Mobley?
 Who is Treelore? How is he described? What happened to him?
 “A bitter seed was planted inside a me. And I just didn’t feel so accepting anymore”,
confesses Aibileen on page 3.
 What does this line make reference to?
 Is this anticipatory in any way? How?

b. Analyse the bridge game:

 Who are the participants in it? What is their relationship?

 What is the issue around the guest bathroom?
 On page 9, we read Aibileen confessing that she is “surprised by how tight my throat get.
It’s a shame I learned to keep down a long time ago”. What does she refer to? What is that
shame? Is it important for her to “keep [it] down”? Why?

c. After having explored the issues in a. and b. in this section, and considering that it is Aibileen
herself who narrates the events in chapter 1, can you venture a description of this character?

MINNY

a. In chapter 3 (p. 38) we are presented with fourteen-year-old Minny. Back then, her mother
indicates her to “[s]it down on your behind, Minny, because I’m about to tell you the rules for
working in a White Lady’s house”. (p. 38).
  Why is the mother entitled to offer Minny these seven rules? What does this imply?
 Which are the seven rules? How does this help us further understand the white/coloured
distinction?
 Rule number seven is particularly relevant in Minny’s case. Why? Can you illustrate?
 Why do you think the author has chosen to capitalise the noun phrase “white lady”?

b. Read the following extract from pages 39-40:

But when the White Lady said: “Now I want you to be sure and
handwash all the clothes first, then put them in the electric machine
to finish up.”
I said: “Why I got to handwash when the power washer gone do
the job? That’s the biggest waste a time I ever heard of.”
That White Lady smiled at me, and five minutes later, I was out on
the street. (pp. 39-40).

 Analyse the passege. Use your analysis to characterise Minny.

c. Minny and Aibileen are good, supporting friends, yet at times the author exposes great
differences between the two. In which way does this counterpoint add to the overall
development of the plot of the novel? And to the creative process involved in Aibileen and
Skeeter’s book?

MISS SKEETER (EUGENIA)

a. Read the first four paragraphs in chapter 5 (p. 54). Make a selection of lexical items to be
included in a wordcloud that helps us describe this character. Use your wordcloud to develop a
brief presentation of Miss Skeeter.
b. Does Eugenia fulfil her mother’s expectations? And her friends’? How is this revealing of her
character? And her mindset?
c. Who is Constantine? How does this character impact on Eugenia?