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domestic life‖. Consequently, they are completing dual jobs; taking care of white family and their own family. African American
maid represents ―comfort and ease not only to a child in conflict, but also to children who view their white mothers
as overbearing and unavailable ‖ p.2. White mother is responsible of advising her
own children about what is right and wrong. Subsequently, Marshall adds that the white Southern American women have an ―equally important role‖ because they
are responsible for keeping the ―Southern Tradition‖ which consists of the do and
do not do list of behavior among Southern women p.1. The Southern Tradition causes American white women to be alienated
from their children because it makes the children feel uncomfortable with such discipline and propriety. Therefore, the children are more comfortable and relaxed
around their ―non-authoritative figure‖ maids. The African American maids are
obviously ―better in domestic and nurturing role than the white mother who is busy protectin
g Southern Tradition‖. They are ―easy, permissive, and less afraid of simple earthy biological need
s and manifestations‖ Marshall, 1999, p.2. On the other hand, the white women are more concerned about their social image and
tend to avoid conversation topics related to some sensitive subjects such as sex and race. Smith 1994 in Marshall 1999, p.2 utters
that ―southern white women know there is something evil in their society, and because they did not believe
things could change or that they should though they could not have told you why they had to shut their minds against knowledge of what exist
ed.‖ This case is a reality which is found in the novel as well.
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D. Theoretical Frameworks
The reviews of related theories are applied to help the writer to answer the research questions in problem formulations. Firstly, the theories of character and
characterization are used to analyze the main character of the novel, Eugenia ‗Skeeter‘ Phelan in Kathryn Stockett‘s The Help. Secondly, the theory of author‘s
intention by Michael Hancher is used to examine the intention of Skeeter as the author of Help.
To support the analysis of a character‘s intention in the novel, it is important that the writer also reviews the setting, in this case, the Southern
America Jackson, Mississippi during early era of Civil Rights Movement 1960s and the social background of the main character. Thus, the socio-
historical approach is chosen by the writer.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter consists of three parts. The first is object of the study. It gives the details about the subject of the study. The second is approach of the study. It
explains the literature approach used in this study. The third is method of the study which mentions the sources and elaborates the steps that the writer conducts
in this study. A.
Object of the Study
The object of this study is a fiction novel entitled The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett. The novel tells about the writing process of a book with similar
title, Help. The book is written by the main character named Skeeter Phelan. To help the reader understand the story, the writer provides the summary of the book
on appendix A. Before The Help was published, it had been rejected for more than 60 times. After it was published by The Penguin Group, New York in 2009, it
became the number one in New York Times Best Seller, selected as the 2010 Indies Choice Book of the Year
– Adult Debut, selected as the 2010 Southern Independent Booksellers Association‘s Book of the Year for Fiction and became
USA TODAY ‘S Book of the Year Kathryn Stockett, 2015.
The Help is Stockett‘s first novel. It consists of 34 chapters and 453 pages.
In 2011, Tate Taylor directed The Help in major motion pictures. Joshilyn
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Jackson, the author of best-selling book, Gods in Alabama praised Stockett and her novel,
Set in the rural South of the 1960‘s, The Help is a startling, resonant
portrait of the intertwined lives of women on opposite sides of the racial divide. Stockett‘s many gifts – a keen eye for character, a wicked sense of
humor, the perfect timing of a natural born storyteller- – shine as she
evokes a time and place when black women were expected to help raise white babies, and yet could not use the same bathroom as their employers.
Her characters, both white and black, are so fully fleshed they practically breathe
– no stock villains or pious heroines here. I‘m becoming an evangelist for The Help. Don‘t miss this wise and astonishing debut.
The Help is written in multiple narrations of three women, one white
American named Eugenia ‗Skeeter‘ Phelan and two African American women named Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, her best friend. Working as maids for
white families in segregated Southern America, they experience many unequal treatments and injustice accusations of crime from the employer. While most of
white Americans discriminate against their African American maid, there is
Skeeter Phelan, the only sympathetic white American in the story who is willing to help the African American to fight against discrimination. As a result, these
three women work together in a secret project that may be influential to change the life in a small town, or maybe to the world. They write, in secret, a book that
tells everything about what is really like to work for white families as an African American maid. Despite the dangerous risks and troubles they have to get through
during the book writing process, they all have the same hope for a better future life.
