The Help (2nd post)

    Right now I'm close to finishing The Help, by Katheryn Stockett.  I think it's a great book, and the main characters are very interesting.  My other post on The Help focused on the three main characters, Skeeter, Minny, and Abileen, so this time I will write my blog post on some of the less important characters like Mrs. Celia, Elizabeth, and Hilly.  

    First of all, Mrs. Celia isn't nearly as important as any of the main characters, but I still think that she is important to the book, and an interesting character.  Most of the people in Jackson, Mississippi, (the setting of The Help,) are either middle-class/rich white people, or the African American people who work for them (the book takes place a while ago, so most of the white people are very racist.)  Mrs. Celia originally comes from a white family possibly poorer than any of the black families in Jackson.  She met Mister Johnny though, who is rich and white, and has married him.  They live together in Jackson, and Mrs. Celia is different because she doesn't quite understand how things work there.  Minny is her maid, yet she insists that she eat at the same table as Minny, and they have conversations all the time.  Mrs. Celia was not raised by a black maid, as most of the white girls in Jackson were, Minny is the first maid she has ever had.  She does not see the boundaries that separate black and white people.  But as Abileen recently realized, those boundaries or lines do not actually exist, they are only imaginary and they are only what many white people want them to believe in.  In a way, Mrs. Celia shows how crazy those fake boundaries actually are.  She thinks of Minny more as a friend than as a maid.  Minny is opposed to this because it's what she has always known, but I think that she is growing to appreciate it.

    Hilly Holbrook is another secondary character.  I often like Celia, but Hilly is always terrible.  She totally racist, and although she may pretend to have good intentions, she is always mean and selfish.  She is president of the Jackson, Mississippi branch of a national social organization, and takes huge pride in it.  The goal of the organization is to donate food to the Poor Starving Children of Africa.  She probably does this for the status, not actually to help people.  I like how Skeeter once points out that while she will say that helping the Poor Starving Children of Africa is a cause dear to her heart, she will do anything in her power to ruin any black person she does not like.  She likes black people in Africa, just not in the U.S.  Of course Hilly fails to see what is wrong in this.  Overall, I think Hilly is a pretty terrible person and I do not like her.
    
    My opinion of Elizabeth Leefolt is similar to my opinion of Hilly.  Elizabeth would follow Hilly into anything.  This might be because of her low economic status compared to Hilly, and because she knows that Hilly would not be very nice to her if she did not act this way.  Elizabeth needs to stop doing everything only to get Hilly's approval.  On top of having no ideas of her own, Elizabeth is also a horrible parent.  As Abileen says in the book, the one good thing about Hilly is her love for her children.  Abileen says she hugs them all the time, and makes sure they know that they are loved and special.  I strongly doubt that Hilly is teaching her children the right lessons, but at least she cares about them.  Elizabeth physically and verbally abuses her daughter Mae Mobley.  She does not care about her at all.  On Mae Mobley's third birthday Elizabeth was off getting her hair done while Abileen was at home making sure Mae Mobley's birthday was special.  Abileen has raised Mae Mobley without Elizabeth to the extent that Mae Mobley thinks of Abileen as her mother, not Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is oblivious to this and has been for long enough that Mae Mobley barely even minds that Elizabeth ignores her.  Elizabeth only cares that Mae Mobley looks cute, nothing else about Mae Mobley matters to Elizabeth.  Elizabeth has been worrying about Mae Mobley being ugly and fat since Mae Mobley was two.  What toddler is not kind of chubby?

    In conclusion, I really like Mrs. Celia, and I think that she shows an interesting perspective on things in Jackson Mississippi.  I don't really like Hilly or Elizabeth, but for different reasons.  Hilly is mean, selfish, and manipulative, but at least she is a loving mother.  Elizabeth needs to get her priorities straight; raising her daughter should come far before impressing Hilly.  In general, I am loving this book and I think that it has many interesting characters.