Discussion

-We all really enjoyed this novel and the perspective it gave us on the white women and their relationships with their black maids in the early 1960s in the South. This was a time where the white families didn’t know any different, this was their way of life and how they themselves were raised.

-It was unimaginable to us the fear that blacks often felt when doing something that might not be acceptable to their white employers such as using the bathroom inside the house rather than using the bathroom built for the black help outside the house. “The help” basically lived in a regime of fear. It was not uncommon for the white women to use threats and lies to secure and exercise power over their black maids. Being employed was an absolute necessity for all black men and women during this time and era as they were paid very little and it took both parents’ incomes to raise a family in what they often lived in - nothing more than a shack with partial dirt flooring.

-The author did a wonderful job developing the various personalities of the maids. Aibleen who writes prayers to God eventually becomes the impetus for the book getting written, and Minnie, who has a difficult time keeping jobs because of her funny but blunt comments to her white employers, are just two of the many fascinating characters in this book.

-There were some issues that we felt were not closed - such as whatever happened to the main character when she moved to New York and whether or not the maids ever made enough money from the book to break out of the never ending cycle of them becoming maids.