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TIME SETTING

August 1962 - late 1964

The time setting for this film is taken place during the 1960's. It is the time where there were a huge gap between the blacks and the white people. Besides, in 1960's, Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation. Most of the people who lived there are non-white and lived below the national poverty lines. This is because of the laws that have been state by the government where non-white people especially the black do not received any priority in the society. It was hard for them to get a good job and their children also do not get a proper education. Some of them need to quit school in order to help their family.

PLACE SETTING

Jackson, Mississippi

This is the main setting of the film. This state has the most population of the black at that time. If we say the blacks, that means we referred to a race that experienced social injustice during 1960's especially in Jackson, Mississippi US. I think the writer of the novel choose this state instead of another state in United States because she want people to understand what was happened to the black there. Why must she choose this state? This kind of racial injustice also occurred at another places other than Mississippi. According to my research on writer's biography, she lived and grow up in there. The different is she is not blacks but she wanted people to know that the black are actually suffering. She does not following the law that deny the right of the blacks, for me she was a brilliant writer because she looked at the blacks at different perspective.  Mississippi was the most right choice to describe about the daily life of the blacks during 1960's. Her experienced growing up there will make her able to describe about the place more precisely.

Hilly's House, Mississippi

Hilly's Front Yard

Hilly's Swimming Pool

Hilly's Kitchen

Hilly's Toilet

From the decoration of Hilly's house, we can see that she is wealthy. For the first picture, it shows the front yard of Hilly's house. There were many toilet bowl being placed in front of the yard. This is to satirize Hilly's because she was the one who support the suggestion that the blacks must use separate toilet with the white. For me, this is a good lesson to teach Hilly not to be so racist because it was the black who help her with her house chores or more correct all the house chores. She should be grateful and appreciate the presence of the blacks as her maids. Without them, I think she does not even know how to cook, doing the laundry and taking care of her own child. 

At the back yard of Hilly's house, there is a swimming pool. It was the place where Hilly's and her friends usually hang out together in the film. What I can see that, Hilly and her friends are mostly a mother. But when they were chatting, they ignored their children and left them to the maids. This shows that they are not a good mother. Their gossips and stories are much more important than their children. We always heard that, children tend to follow their parents' behavior. It is not impossible that one day their children will do the same thing to their grandchild. In addition, their children might also ignored them when they were old because they remembered that their mother's do not giving them much attention when they were little.

Kitchen is the place for the blacks (maids and housekeepers). It is the place where they are free. The term 'free' is not mean that they can do what ever they want but it is a place where they can eat and talk each other. Kitchen in this film is a place where there are many heart-to-heart conversation. Maids usually shared their problems with their maid partner in the kitchen. It is a place where they can complained about their employer and the most important is a place where they shared their stories. Skeeter, a journalist also interviewed two of the maids, Aibileen and Minny in a kitchen.