English 11B: May 2020

Ah, the end of the term is nearly upon us, and this will be one of my final posts. With the expanse of summer days coming up, it feels like the sun is rising on a new mountain of time, but with school ending, I also feel like the sun is setting on a strange moment in history. Thanks for weathering it all!

Overall, I think most of you did really well. You didn't lose it. You checked in every day. You did the best you could, and you did it all while worrying about life and the future. Good job.

We have one week left, so all you need to do is finish the book and take your final quiz on it next Thursday. We do have 10 chapters remaining, and I know some folks have read ahead and are nearly finished, but I want to be sure to give everyone enough time to finish it, so next Thursday should be enough time. If it isn't, please let me know. *As always, no work from this week accepted after Sunday.

I hope the book makes you think about the personal ways that race, class, and gender affected people not only in the 1960s, but also now. It is definitely a story about change, and how change can happen little by little.

Think about how Aibileen felt at the beginning of the story...

She was lonely, sad, and frustrated about her life. Treelore's death was a constant memory. Plus, the Leefolts took on debt to build a bathroom for her just so they didn't have to share, and her friend Minny had just been wrongly accused of stealing by Hilly. Did she want things to change? Of course! Who wouldn't?

Was it worth the risk though? Change was starting to happen in 1960s Jackson and all over the South, but every step forward came at a cost: kids getting blown up in churches, Medgar Evers getting shot, the national guard having to escort James Meredith to college just so no one would attack him. This is why the decision for the maids to help Skeeter with the book was such a heavy one. Helping her didn't just mean risking their lives, it meant affecting the lives of everyone they loved. Can you imagine losing your mom just because she told her story in a book? That's what we are talking about here.

They did take the risk though, and they trusted Skeeter, a white woman, to help them. Have you ever thought about why she was different and what made them eventually trust her?

Was she different because she was basically raised by Constantine, a black woman? Maybe, but I'd venture to guess most of her friends had black nannies as well. Was she different because she finished college and had more education than her friends who dropped out as soon as they found a husband? Maybe. Was she different because she could never rely on being pretty to help her out? Maybe. Was she different because she grew up in the country and not in town? Perhaps.

It's probably a combination of these factors that enabled her to take the risks she did as well. While it certainly wasn't easy for the maids to help with the book, it comes at a cost for Skeeter too as you will see in the coming chapters. The next chapter - 25- is the climax of the story and so many funny and intense events happen. It is the only chapter for which there is no narrator because it is set at the charity benefit and an omniscient narrator tells you everything that happens. Do not miss it! There is a show-down between Hilly and Celia that is just pure gold.