The Help Blog Chapters 19-22: Our Limitations

In chapters 19 through 22 of the Help, I feel that Stockett really explores the characters limitations. Such as Stuart’s limitations when it comes to talking about his ex, Patricia. He could barely even handle it when Miss Skeeter asked him a few questions about her. Then, he was really tested when his dad brought Patricia up at dinner with the Phelan family. He could not think about her, and tried to demonstrate his limitation with the subject when he told his father to stop. When our limitations aren’t respected, we cannot handle certain situations and that is why Stuart broke up with Miss Skeeter. Limitations don’t seem like that great of a social issue, but we just don’t always recognize it as one. We pay attention to teenagers who don’t know their limitations. They die from overdosing on drugs or getting alcohol poising from consuming too much alcohol or getting in a car crash from driving under the influence because they think they are invincible. But limitations can also come in forms or work or school, because sometimes we don’t know how much we can handle. Another way in which limitation is a social issue is because other people don’t care to know or respect our limitations.

Miss Skeeter came to terms with the fact that sometimes our limitations are barely recognized or respected while she was interviewing Louvenia who works for Lou Anne. When Louvenia’s grandson was blinded for using the white bathroom, she needed time off of work to help him. Lou Anne gave her two weeks off as well as brought her casseroles and was the one to take Louvenia to the hospital when she first heard what happened. As Louvenia told Miss Skeeter all of this, she realized that “Lou Anne has never mentioned this to any of [them]. And [she understood] completely why she didn’t” (258). Lou Anne had helped out her maid in so many ways and believed her friends wouldn’t approve. She was limited in telling the truth and no one even noticed. It is the same way that Miss Skeeter is limited; she cannot tell anyone the truth about the book because they won’t approve of her.

            Earlier in the chapters, Miss Skeeter finds out what happened to Yule May and feels extreme frustration when Miss Hilly is talking about it. Miss Skeeter wanted so badly to tell Miss Hilly off, but she knew she couldn’t. This is yet another way in which our limitations control us; by society. Miss Skeeter couldn’t speak up because she knew that if she said anything, no one would back her up. At one point she said, “I fight the urge to snap each of her flapping fingers in half, but I hold my tongue. Let her think everything is fine. It is safer for everyone” (254). Miss Skeeter cannot say what she wants, and this symbolizes the way in which we are limited every day by society. Certain things are expected of us based on where we live and how we are raised, and we are looked down upon if we go against our expectations. It can be as simple as our weight, what college we choose, or if we even go to college. But no one stops to ask what we want or what our limitations are. No one ever asks. And even if they do, we give them the answer we know they want to hear. This is exactly what Stockett explores in these chapters; how deep our limitations go and how much they affect us.

The Help Blog Chapters 15-18: Where do we draw our lines?

             Throughout chapters 15 through 18, a larger message was presented about struggling with where we need to draw lines in life and our responsibilities to lines we didn’t know were drawn. When Aibileen takes care of Mae Mobley, we see a line often stepped over by Aibileen. She constantly tells Mae Mobley “you kind, you smart, you important” (199). She does this as much as possible because Mae Mobley’s own mother doesn’t. Then Aibileen realizes that Mae Mobley’s “growing up and [she] know, soon, them few words ain’t gone be enough” (199). This is where we see Aibileen begin to struggle as she does not want to overstep her boundaries as she only is the help, but also does not want to forget that she has a responsibility to Mae Mobley to be the mother she doesn’t have.

            Another place where we see Aibileen struggle with her responsibility is during the meetings with Miss Skeeter. She has a very strong responsibility as help, and it makes her worry to think what could happen to her and her family if people found out how far out of line she was stepping. Her job is to be the help and do solely that; not tell the truth about what goes on behind closed doors. However, Aibileen has a responsibility to the other help and to many other blacks who have been treated wrongfully in the past. She realizes this when she says “we telling stories that need to be told” (208). Aibileen has committed to stepping out of line for her responsibility to her people and to herself. She knows that if she is not strong enough to do so, who will be? So, these chapters teach us that sometimes we have to step out of line to see where the true line is drawn based on our responsibilities.

Death Penalty Final Response

            I believe that the abolishment of the death penalty in Illinois was just. Besides the issue of morality, the death penalty has been met with the conflict of factual evidence. Governor Ryan of Illinois ordered a blanket commutation right before the end of his term. After originally having supported the death penalty, Ryan was shocked to see how many innocent people have been executed and how easily their innocence could have been proven. As he began to see the flaws in our justice system, a group of people at Northwestern University pushed him all the way to the side of pro-life. In his speech, he said “Together they spared the lives and secured the freedom of 17 men - men who were wrongfully convicted and rotting in the condemned units of our state prisons.” Ryan recognized that if students and a professor from a college could prove the inmates innocence, something was going very wrong. I agree with his decision to a blanket commutation as the death penalty does not deter murder and after seventeen men on Illinois’ death row had already been proven innocent when their cases were re-opened, many more were sure to be innocent.

            The Illinois’ legislature decision was based mostly off of this new idea that Ryan had discovered; fact over morality. Morality is a difficult argument because everyone’s morals are different, but one cannot disprove fact. As case after case was given a new trial, innocence was proven and it was only just to abolish capital punishment. Juries began voting more for innocence and lesser sentences. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said "The life-without-parole option is not going away." As the legislation of Illinois began to understand how unreliable the justice system was, they realized they could not do much but abolish capital punishment entirely. I believe that this act was just because it is not fair to take the life of an innocent person. We say that murder is murder, and execution is different. But if the person we are executing is innocent, then I consider it murder. In the movie Deadline, Scott Turow, a practiced lawyer and author, said “even the people who believe in the death penalty don’t believe in killing innocent people.”

            Also interviewd in the movie was Gabriel Salachai, who was pleading for innocence. He was always working, never did drugs and was trying to make money to support himself. Salachai said that he only confessed because “I couldn’t take the beatings any more.” This is one of the things that gets overlooked when it seems so evident; race. Salachai was given a document to sign that was written in English and a detective read it aloud to him in Spanish. In my opinion, that is not just. Salachai was not sure of what he was singing, his confession was beaten out of him, we don’t know whether or not the jury or evidence was biased, what more does it take to make this case unjust? As Governor Ryan accepted more and more of this evidence proving the inaccuracy and unjust system of capital punishment, he decided that the death penalty “should be a decision without error.” I agree with his decision upon coming to terms with the fact that it is impossible for the decision to be made without error. Error is inevitable, and therefore the death penalty needed to be abolished. I agree with Ryan’s and the Illinois legislature’s decision because the death penalty system in it of itself is unjust and no innocent person should be murdered.