ISU Book Synopsis

The novel that I chose to analyze for me ISU was The Help by Kathrynn Stockett. The book is about a young girl named Skeeter who lives in Jackson, Mississippi, and portrays her interactions with the African-American maids who work in her white, prejudiced town.

The Protagonist, Skeeter, is a young southern girl born and raised in the small town of Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter attended Ole Miss University, but besides her experience at school she has never really left her home town. Growing up, Skeeter had a very tight connection with her maid, Constantine. Constantine worked with Skeeter's family for many years and Skeeter looked to her as a motherly figure at times while her own mother was busy. This connection would be very important in the story because it not only gave Skeeter respect for maids, but proved to her that maids could be people to and that they have emotions, families, and opinions.

Interestingly, The Help has quite a few major themes within the story, and outlines many issues. Examples of some major themes would be society and class, violence, family, racism, a sense of home, education, judgement, and the role of gender. The most prominent role, however, would definitely be racism and prejudice as that is the backbone of the story.

To summarize the novel, Skeeter returns from school and acquires a job writing a cleaning article for her local newspaper. She asks Aibileen for advice and meets up with Aibileen for interviews about old tricks of cleaning. Eventually, these interviews turn into much more personal stories of how Aibileen, Minny, and other African-American maids are treated by their white households. Skeeter ends up writing a novel about her small town from the perspective of the maids without the white people knowing, and it becomes a national bestseller. The book also outlines many relationships between white people that exemplify exactly what was wrong with this time frame.

The Oedipus Complex

The Oedipus complex is evident in many stories, especially Oedipus Rex. The Oedipus complex can be defined as: "a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex" ( Encyclopædia Britannica). The reasoning behind the name is that in the story Oedipus Rex, Oedipus accidentally slays his father and marries his mother. Obviously this is a prime example of the Oedipus Complex because Oedipus, being a male, would somehow be connected to his mother in a primitive sense, and in the story he marries his mother. Similarly, in theory, Oedipus should have a sense of rivalry with his father. Just as the complex implies, Oedipus actually murders his father without even realizing what he has done.

In my opinion, the Oedipus complex is a hyperbolized version of an actual thing. By this I mean that sometimes people end up with others who look like their mother or father, but I don't think there is a desire towards ones parent. I feel like this another classic example of freud trying to be a psychological innovator finding odd sexual theories in everything that happens. For example, my mother is an artist, and yes I do like artistic girls but there is definitely no sexual attraction to my own mother because that is kind of gross.

Post #5 - Social Experiments

1) Stanley Milgrims shock experiment is similar to the book of negroes because it shows how people in power can sometimes lose their morals when they are instructed to do something. For example, the people who were doing the shocking took on this form where they didn't mind hurting the people even though realistically it should bug them. Similarly, Chekura was placed in this position of power during the long walks and he took advantage as well.

2) Dr Zimbardo's prison experiment, the story of random students playing roles of either prisoner or prison guard, had ridiculous results which apply nicely to the themes in the book of negroes. The students who were good people before hand that were placed in the guard role, actually became violent and rude with their peers who had become prisoners. The reason for their behavior? Because they could. Just like this experiment, there were many slaves who would be put in positions (the boat paddlers), that would then think they were superior and treat other slaves poorly.

3) Stockholm Syndrome is when prisoners or captives end up having feelings of empathy, sympathy, and other positive feelings towards their captors. This happens in the book of negroes as well, believe it or not. Aminata constantly puts her trust in white people despite seeing all of the bad and this is because she feels some of them are good. Little does Aminata know that she actually is getting hurt constantly...

ISU Blog Post

The book I have selected to read is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The Help is the story of african-american maids working in Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter is a twenty-two year old white girl who's mother won't rest until she's married. Skeeter is a journalist and meets with the maids under the table to write a book about how they are treated and what is going on in these white homes. The story also follows the paths of two black maids, Abilileen and Minny, who get involved in all sorts of things over the years.