Female Bonding in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help

Abstract

The basic concern of this research is to explain how unity amidst Black women is a stepping stone in fighting against racial domination. Unities amidst Black women, who work as the maids in white families, have no option other than getting united for the sake of establishing equality and individual self-esteem. Black women like Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter have to face several hassles and hardship within the domestic world of the white ladies. From minor thing like using toilet to weekly pay, they are subjected to the serious hassles and hardships. In Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help, three major Black female characters help one another consistently. Eugenia Skeeter helps Aibileen, Minny and Constantine by publishing in Jackson League Daily those articles which directly deal with the harassment and segregation of Black women by their white employers. The perspective of female bonding, which lays emphasis on group identity and alliance amidst sisterhood in suffering, is the main theoretical window from which the growing alliance and unity amidst women are probed and examined critically. In this regard, it would be logically relevant to argue that female bonding is instrumental in putting an end to head of racist torture and patriarchal subjugation. In this case, this research appears as the brilliant case in point.