An Adaptation from The Novel 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett

The movie was an adaptation from a novel, The Help. It was published in 2009 and becoming a film in 2011. It is one of a Best-Seller novels in 2009. Written by Kathryn Stockett, an English writer from Mississippi, she was successful to picture what was happened between the black and the white people in her town during 1960's.

Kathryn Stockett

Stockett was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1969. The time where the black people were under controlled by the white people. Most of them especially women worked as maid or housekeeper at white people's houses. She was inspired to wrote this novels because it was based on her true experience. When she was little, her family had a black housekeeper named Demetrie. Demetrie came to wait for her grandmother in 1955 and stayed in her house for 32 years. She also taking care of her and her 5 siblings - playing with them, changed her diapers and even took her the clinic to get her injection . Besides, she also did all the house cleaning and grocery shopping. At that time, she adored Demetrie as much as her own mother. In some ways, the found Demetrie was much more thanher mother who was always busy. She also noticed that a white dress wore by Demetrie was a 'pass' for her to walk along white people's neighbourhood and to the grocery store. During her family holidays, Demetrie was paid to join them and take care of her siblings during the vacation. But, one thing that she felt pity about Demetrie was she need to use a separate toilet located outside of the house. The toilet had only one bath tub and she use the bath tub to wash her clothes instead of taking her bath. The most thing that she remembered about Demetrie was her saying, 'you are beautiful, you're smart, you're important'.  It was probably the most intimate relationship she ever had with someone who wasn’t related to her. She was ashamed to admit that it took her 20 years to realise the irony of that relationship. She was so sure that’s why she wrote her novel, The Help – to find answers to her questions, to soothe her own mind about Demetrie. She wonder, if Demetrie were still alive, how she would feel about the old rules. When would she have had the nerve to finally walk into my neighbourhood grocery store without her uniform on? What would she say about having a black president in the White House?