Would One Narrator Have Worked for The Help?

Finished The Help. Good book. Very interesting and enjoyable take on the 1960's South as all hell is breaking lose. The verisimilitude of the novel is very good and I like the way the author wove in the events of the time, JFK assassination, Medgar Evers killing, the advent of air conditioning, television shows. Very good. And of course the maids views points gave the story it's hook and really it's reason for being. It's what it was all about right?

So here is my question. Why the multiple narrators? Why not stick with Abileen who opens the novel instead of cutting away to everyone else? Minny is a strong narrator but she is too prejudiced in her views. Skeeter, our alternate protagonist does not have the voice. It is a failure of the novel that the main white character, our character, whom we are in sympathy with is probably the weakest. Besides evolving into a writer and leaving the South for NY at the end, she just doesn't really catch fire.

But Abileen, she is a character and it is her book. It is fitting she should have the first chapter and the last chapter. She is the voice heart and soul of the book and it is curious that the author should use multiple narrators when all it did was distract us and take away from the power of the novel. Multiple narrators are used for great effect when other viewpoints are essential but this is not the case in The Help. I would argue the power is diluted by not seeing it though Abileens eyes.

We could experience all the bigotry and cruelty of the ladies of Mississippi through Abileen. She could give us every blow by blow and she would pull the loose ends together. Put her against the Skeeter story of her failed relationship with the Senators son and her dying mother and her struggles to become who she is. This could all still be achieved with Abileen by having Skeeter tell her about it when they get together. The author has power in Abilbeen and Minny, but the other characters are weak and a bit stereotypical.

But all in all a good novel from a viewpoint we don't ofter hear. I just wanted to hear more of it.

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The Real Women of "The Help"

In Virginia and Baltimore everyone had a cleaning person. Or a maid. Or a cook. Or an Annie. Or a Belle. Or a Polly. All my friends had black "Help." I would go to their homes and Annie would make us sandwiches and mysteriously disappear in the evenings and then come back early the next day. That was in Baltimore. In Virginia my father was raised by Addie. I wrote about her in Tobacco Sticks and she was the mother of my character in more ways than once. She was the classic Gone With The Wind Mammy who was large and drank a lot and swore even more. But that was who raised my dad. His mother was any of the woman of The Help playing bridge and drinking highballs.

For me in Baltimore we had Belle. She was large too and more updated than the Virginia Help that actually wore uniforms. I remember looking through a fan vent once and seeing our neighbors the Helfers maid doing laundry. She saw me and waved and I ducked back down. It was standard to assume everyone had Help and they were all black. That is until we moved up to Chicago. Suddenly there were no black people in the suburbs. I wondered where they all went. They were in the city and everyone had Polish cleaning woman. My mother found Polly then; the last black maid in Chicago.

Polly carried a gun for the bus rides in Chicago. I think it was a thirty eight and I saw the silver handle sticking out her purse. She said it was a Saturday Night Special. She said she had been bothered more than once and stuck it in the face of one man and said you want to live NI&^%$? He did and never messed with her again. Polly stayed with my mother even after the divorce and then she just disappeared and hard times along with the end of something, maybe an era, did away with any type of HELP after that.

When my wife and I had cleaning people they were always Polish. I never even wondered if they would be black. They charged so much we stopped and haven't had any help for years. We are the Help now. But when I read THE HELP, I knew those women very well.  In a way, I grew up with them.