Comparison
To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help
Characters
Calpurnia and Abilene
Calpurnia and Aibileen are comparable characters. First, Calpurnia and Aibileen both raised and raise white children. In the movie Aibileen raised Mae Mobley and in the book Calpurnia raised Scout and Jem. Also, both women had families and children at home that they had to take care of. Even though both women were maids, they both had a personal connection with the children they took care of.
Aunt Alexandra and Charlotte Phelan
Aunt Alexandra and Charlotte Phelan are comparable characters because they are both concerned about appearance. Aunt Alexandra was always concerned on how Scout looked on the outside and what she wore. In the movie, Charlotte always tried to make sure Skeeter was looking presentable. When Stuart came to talk to Skeeter the one morning, Charlotte helped Skeeter look presentable for this man.
Plot
Lynch Mobs
In the movie when Medgar Evers (the black man) was shot and in the book when the lynch mob went after Tom to kill him are two similar plot events. When Medgar Evers was killed, he was killed because of the things he said on nation television. A white gang went after him and shot him. The lynch mob went after Tom because of the actions and uprising he was bringing to the town of Maycomb. The white people didn’t like the attention that these black men were getting and they thought the only way to change that was to kill them.
Benefit Meeting/ Tea Party
Aunt Alexandra’s tea party and Hilly’s benefit meeting are similar plot events in the story. In the book, the women at the tea party were worried about the poverty and the African Americans that were in Africa, but they could’ve cared less about the poverty and African Americans in their own town. Those women weren’t worrying about Tom’s trial or even his well-being, but instead they were worrying about the black poor people on the other side of the world. The exact same thing happened in The Help, but in a more radical way. In the movie Hilly was having a benefit not for the Negros in her own town, but the Negros in Africa. Hilly treated the Negros in her own town like trash but when it came to Negros half way around the word, she was all about helping them. Both women were more concerned about Negros that they didn’t have to make direct contact with.
Themes
Growing up can be Difficult
A major theme in, both, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help was that growing up can be difficult. Scout finds this out in the book with the whole realization of racism and the world isn’t as nice of a place as it is made out to be. Scout got upset when was Tom was convicted wrongly because she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t being treated like any other person. She also had to realize these very mature ideas at a very young age which was another reason why her ability to understand was so difficult. In The Help, Skeeter had to realize that the lives of black people were worse than she thought they were. It was hard for Skeeter to accept these ideas of radical racism in her town. Also, Mae Mobley had to see some of the radical racism at a very young age. When Abilene was fired Mae Mobley had to see and try to understand the radical racism that existed.
Courage
In To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help were similar in that courage was needed to stand up and face challenges and do what was right. In To Kill a Mockingbird a lot of courage was shown. One example was when Atticus agreed to and defended Tom Robinson in court. Atticus believed that everyone was created equal and that everyone deserved a chance. This took a lot of courage because in Maycomb at that time black people and white people were not equal. For Atticus to stand up and defend Tom meant that he didn’t care about what others would think and what this would do to his family. Atticus felt the need to support Tom, not for the publicity and he wasn’t worried about what may happen. That took a lot of courage. In The Help, Abilene, Minny, and Skeeter had courage. I took Abilene and Minny a lot of courage to even tell all their stories. Also Minny had a lot of courage when she took Hilly the “special pie” after she was fired. Skeeter was being extremely courageous to even write about what was going on in the lives of black people.