Tuesday, July 27, 2010

In The Help, how will Skeeter's book be different from Gone with the Wind?

Skeeter's book, The Help, is not intended to have very much in common with Gone with the Wind. On the surface, of course, both books describe the racial conflict, one during the Civil War, another a hundred years later.


Skeeter's goal in writing The Help is actually to contrast Gone with the Wind by focusing on black--instead of white--people of the South. As she tells her New York publisher, Margaret Mitchell (the author of Gone with the Wind) has already created this "glorified image of Mammy." But, she wonders, has anybody ever considered how Mammy feels about it? Skeeter is on a mission to tell the story of the hardship of Aibileen, Minnie, her own caregiver Constantine, and all other Mammies of Jackson, as opposed to the story of the challenges that a contemporary Scarlett might be facing.

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