入圍
姓  名 陳佳文 學  校 台中市立惠文高級中學 年  級 五 年 一 班

 

 

The Help

The Help is a story about racial discrimination and relationships between colored helps and the white in the twentieth century. Seeing all the unfairness and ridiculous regulations to the colored, Miss Skeeter, who had deep love and gratitude to the maid that had raised her, decided to write a book aiming to change something. As more and more colored maids took part in helping with this book, things began to be risky and irremediable at the same time, just like a spark of fire which turns out to burn the whole forest.

My favorite characters in the story are Skeeter and Aibileen. Instead of listening to others’ demands and obeying the irrational rules like other ladies in her hometown, Skeeter had her own opinions and was brave enough to change the status quo. Skeeter’s perseverance is also respectable. She didn’t give up finishing the book although all the tragedies came at the same time like a destructive tornado, breaking her down and depriving her of everything she had. Besides, she kept worrying others might get hurt but didn’t care about her own broken heart. Thanks to her book, though things were still risky and messy, some white people began to examine their attitude to their maids and some even felt a sense of gratitude for their maids. As for Aibileen, she was so brilliant that she made every tiring thing become easier. In addition, the way she taught baby Mae Mobely was so wise and gentle. Every story she told her had some deeper meanings and was full of love. I think this little seed she planted in Mae Mobely’s heart so patiently will soon sprout and blossom.

When reading this book, I have thousands of hundreds of complicated feelings. Sometimes, I feel my heart crying for the cruel treatments to those colored people. I can’t believe a young black man was beaten by five or six people and became blind just because he used the white’s toilet. Moreover, a white lady could accuse the helps of stealing and put them into jail or make them unemployed forever without any evidence. Though being furious about the colored helps’ predicaments, sometimes I still could feel the warmth spreading inside my heart when knowing that some of the white considered and treated their maids as friends and believed that their lives would be bleak without them.

Another thing that makes me feel touched is the spirit of the colored people. It was a pretty ironic matter that the colored maids had to raise the white babies but to send their own ones away since they didn’t have time to look after them. However, they still loved and took care of the white babies as their own children, teaching them to be kind and telling them they are important. Their love for them was like the sun in spring, lighting up hopes and nourishing every little bud. The helps also built a strong bond with each other. The trust between them was as steady as a high mountain, which no one could ever make it move. What’s more, they never let tears drop down easily in order to hide their weakness. They just silently but wholeheartedly supported and protected other fellows.

In general, this book let me think deeply about two things: how to change and how to love. Sometimes, with our prejudice against one person, what that person does or how he or she acts would be just so hateful and disturbing. Nonetheless, maybe it’s just the prejudice that builds the wall between those people and us so high, and thus makes us unable to accept those people. Once we put down the bias, things might be totally different and maybe we would eventually find those people indispensable and important to us.