Over this past week, I read chapters 7-11 in the Help. The focus of these chapters was on how the help raise the children, and then they turn out to be the same way as their mothers and fathers. We see this relationship between the help and the kids develop through Mae Mobley and Aibileen. When trying to teach Mae Mobley to go to the bathroom on the toilet, Aibileen really struggles with handling the situation. As she described, most of the white mothers would sit on the toilet and show their kids how to do it; to set an example, but Miss Leefolt refused. I don’t know which would have been better; for Aibileen to sit on the toilet in the house to show her, or to bring her out to her own toilet like she did. I think it would have been much better for Aibileen to show Mae Mobley in the house, because it would have avoided the problem of Mae Mobley constantly wanting to go on Aibileen’s toilet. However, this is one of the issues that gets brought up; Mae Mobley doesn’t know better. She doesn’t realize that the toilet outside is only for Aibileen, and when she gets spanked by her mother for going to the bathroom in there, she doesn’t understand what she did wrong. This shows the issue of how children’s innocence gets taken away when they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. It takes away the desire to explore that children have because, as Aibileen described about Mae Mobley, “she don’t know what she is yet” (92).
Aside from the issue of the innocent children are raised in a confusing manner that ultimately makes them act the same way towards their own children, these chapters brought up how bad things happen to good people. We are introduced to a new character, Robert, who was one of Treelore’s friends before he died. The young boy told Aibileen that he would be coming by to mow her lawn, as he always did without her asking since Treelore was no longer there to do so. Soon after, Aibileen found out that after accidentally using the white bathroom at a store, he was chased and beaten blind. Aibileen was in shock as Franny Coots said “poor Louvenia. I don’t know why the bad have to happen to the goodest ones” (101). I completely agree with Franny; Robert was a sweet and caring boy who helped Aibileen find some peace after the loss of her son, even by doing the simplest of things for her like mowing her lawn. He made one innocent mistake, and it cost him the ability to see for the rest of his life. This is exactly how the book shows that the innocent and the good people are the ones the bad things happen to. I think that while it is wrong, there is a reason behind it whether it is conscious or not. If another kid had been chased and beaten to blindness who was constantly looking for trouble, then people wouldn’t have as strong of a reaction. It was the fact that it happened to a caring, good boy that made what happened even worse. The same goes for Mae Mobley; she was spanked by her own mother for trying to please her by going to the bathroom, and unknowingly using Aibileen’s when she didn’t know the difference; had Mae Mobley been older and doing it to purposefully annoy her mother, we wouldn’t feel the pain we do for Mae Mobley.
I love this book; it captures simple ideas in a complex way that makes them so much more meaningful. Stockett has already showed me how nature, nurture and innocence can affect people’s lives. I can not wait to read what she will teach me next.
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