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Quote by Kathryn Stockett

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The Help

This book delves into the lives of African-American maids working for white families in Jackson, Mississippi, and the impact of the civil rights movement on their lives. It portrays the struggles and triumphs of these women, their relationships with their employers, and their fight for dignity and equality. more

Author

Kathryn Stockett
Kathryn Stockett

Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist born in 1969. Her debut novel, 'The Help,' published in 2011, quickly became a bestseller and was adapted into a film of the same name. Set in the American South during the 1960s, the novel tells the story of the relationship between black maids and white authors, exploring issues of race relations and social justice. more

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“In those monologues [from men], I found my own gripes. They felt counted out, the way I felt counted out. They felt ignored, the way I felt ignored. They felt like they'd failed. They had regret. They were insecure. They worried about their legacies. They said all the things I wasn't allowed to say aloud without fear of appearing grandiose or self-centred or conceited or narcissistic. I imposed my narrative onto theirs, like in one of those biology textbooks where you can place the musculature picture over the bone picture of the human body. I wrote about my problems through men. That was when I knew for sure, that this was the only way to get someone to listen to a woman—to tell her story through a man; Trojan horse yourself into a man, and people would give a shit about you. So I wrote heartfelt stories about their lives, extrapolating from what they gave me and running with what I already knew from being human[...] I realised all humans are essentially the same, but only some of us, the men, were truly allowed to be that without apology. The mens' humanity was sexy and complicated; ours (mine) was to be kept in the dark at the bottom of the story and was only interesting in the service of the man's humanity. (pg 236)”

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“What are you so angry about?" my mother had asked me the last time I had gone home to visit. Why aren't you more angry, I had wanted to ask her. But I couldn't talk to my mother that way. She understood that I did not want to live her life, to work as a waitress, until my toes curled in and my feet hurt all the time, to marry a man who would beat my children and treat me as if I had no right to object to object to anything he chose to do. She didn't want that life for me either. She wanted me happy and successful, to live unafraid among people who loved me, and to do things she had never been able to do and tell her all about them. So I told her, about the shelter, the magazine, readings and discussion groups. I told her about trying to write stories, though I hesitated to send send her all that I wrote. And there were far too many times when I would sit down to write my mama and stare at the paper unable to puzzle out how to explain how urgent and unimportant it was to change how women's lives were shaped. Not only that we should be paid equal money for equally difficult work, but that we should genuinely begin to think about what word we might choose to undertake, how we might live our daily lives. Why should I have to marry at all? Or explain myself if I chose to love a woman? Why could I not spend my hours writing stories instead of raising children or keeping house or working some deadly boring job just to cover the rent of an apartments where I was not safe anyway.”

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