Kathryn Stockett was born in Jackson, Mississippi, USA, in 1969, in a time when there was segregation of black people by white people. The irony was that white children were raised by black maids, and black maids would raise them with love. However, after those white children would grow up, they would discriminate against all black people, including the black maids who had raised them. In the book “The Help”, the author intended to show that exact reality, a reality she knew very well. She was one of those white children who were raised by a black maid.

Mississippi was where the racial issue was most dramatic (in a way it still is) and Jackson, as the state capital, was the centre of it all. The story of this book revolves around two distinct groups of women who, although living close to each other, don’t mix: the white rich women and the black poor women. These black women are hired as housemaids and babysitters by the white women. Little things are shown that portray things as they were: even though they are the ones who clean white people’s toilets, black maids are not allowed to use those toilets, they have to use the toilet outside the house.

As the story unfolds, we get to know the lives of both groups of women and especially how different their lives are. We follow a young white woman who returned home after graduating from university and wants to find out what happened to the black maid that had raised her and suddenly had disappeared. She comes closer to the black maids that serve in the houses of her white married friends. She then builds a friendship with one of those black women, someone who has a vocation to write and tell stories. The young white woman decides to write a book together with the black woman and both of them soon discover how dangerous and scary that simple job is. But they don’t give up, and they start to collect stories of black maids serving white people.

“The Help” is about the writing of that book with the maid stories. It’s about injustice and discrimination, segregation and inequality. It’s also about true friendship and false friendship, people being evil while thinking they are being good, and the courage it takes to change things.