David Pilgram's The Help

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“The Help” Research Paper Life in the 1960s was very different from the time we live in now. There was segregation in every public place and even in the white’s homes if they had maids. In The Help’s portrayal of the black maids and white women of the 1960s, the white women were superior over the black maids. The white women hired the black maids to do their work, such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of their children. Most black women quit school to work so they could support their families. There were some black maids who felt that the discrimination was wrong and rebelled and wrote a book on the experiences in the white’s home. Even though the stakes were high knowing the consequences they still wrote the book. However, the white…show more content…
They held jobs such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of the white children. They did not have control of their own lives, their white superiors gave them orders on what to do all day and they did not have much time to themselves to do what they wanted. In the article “The Mammy Caricature,” author David Pilgram writes “the mammy caricature implied that black woman were only fit to be domestic workers” (Pilgram) which describes what their household duties were and how they were treated. The job of the “mammy” was a full time job with only little time to rest which only consisted of the couple of seconds in between each of the household duties they had to do. Many of the maids wore the same so called uniform, as stated by Stockett “I put on my white uniform and put my little good cross back around my neck and I went to wait on Miss. Leefolt cause she have a baby girl” (3). The black maids also found themselves waiting on people if there were to be a function in the house of a white woman. The black women were considered to be only one thing a house servant which is itemized by Pilgram “black women found themselves forced into one job category, house servants” (Pilgram). The black women’s roles in the 1960s were different from those of white women and also the way they were treated by

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