2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

of them. However, Scout does this as she learns about the different expectations set for women. Scout is staggered when she discovers that women are not allowed to be on the jury as Maycomb claims that they need to be protected from sordid cases: “You mean women in Alabama can’t -?” (pg.244). This exposes to both Scout and the reader that females are portrayed to be weaker than men. Additionally, her inquisitiveness leads readers to admire her ability to feed her curiosity despite the force of society. Racism Stockett’s novel, The Help, deals with the problem of racism in the early 1960’s, in Jackson, Mississippi where the town is seen to be segregated and is subjected to the racist views and beliefs and its habitants. Stockett explores the way racism is woven into the community’s everyday life, she does this through discussed stereotypes and mundane conversations. The novel also discusses the danger someone can come across when they choose to evade the racial boundaries set into the society and question the stereotypes believed. Stockett uses Eugenia Phelan, also known as Skeeter, to explore the prejudices placed in the Jackson community and the carefully constructed line between white and black and the way in which the people of Jackson choose to react to people they don’t think belong. Eugenia Phelan, a twenty-two-year- old Caucasian female transgresses the boundaries surrounding racial equality. At the beginning of the novel Skeeter has just graduated from University and returns home to find that her favourite childhood maid and nanny has disappeared and nobody will tell her why. Skeeter dreams of becoming a writer and decides to write a novel featuring the personal stories of the African-American maids and their relationships with their white families within Jackson, when she is contacted by a publisher in New Analysing Characters in The Help

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