Multiple Perspectives - the Help

Activity A – Categories of Multiple Narrative Perspective Novels
The category of my novel is “One Event, Multiple Perspectives”.   The story is narrated by three different women living in Jackson, Mississippi in the 60s where black maids raise white children but integration is a long, long way from their daily reality.   Aibileen works for Miss Leefolt and is raising her seventeenth white child at the same time as she grieves for her son’s recent tragic death.   Minny, sassy and quite the best cook in town is trying to keep her tongue in check and not get fired from yet another household and Miss Skeeter, home from college, is trying to find out where her childhood maid has disappeared to and discover what she really wants to do with her life. As the story unfolds, boundaries are crossed, friendships are forged and courage is found. Each of the three comes to depend on each other, work with each other and because they do, an extraordinary and powerful story is shared.
Each of the three main characters narrates their part of the story within their own chapters and each is defined beautifully, with distinct voices and unique personalities as they take up the reins of the tale from each other.   Often, you get a description of events from three different perspectives and this works brilliantly to highlight even further the disparity in status between the help and the employers.   Despite their very different characters, they each bring an immediate warmth and comfort to the story and draw you in right from the start.   It’s a tale that shocks and outrages you at appalling conditions and people’s capacity for outdated and repulsive attitudes, but one that also makes you laugh out loud and somehow, in the midst of all of it, the strength of the characters, the absolute truthfulness and the belief and care you have immediately in and for them, involves you to the point you feel aggrieved and angry and supportive often at the same time.   It isn’t only the three narrators that...