They bumble, they stumble, and still they tug at the heart with their earnest nature and inability to truly find fault or want to hurt anyone. Just like a child. So much so, that color is not a barrier. But then, it never was. From the first moment that Minny and Celia meet, though Minny is the one interviewing for a job, Celia defers to her.
But the circumstances they find themselves in are similar. Elizabeth Leefolt has a few tantrums directed at her own daughter Mae Mobley. The oppressed domestics know what it feels like to be an outcast. Unlike a few recent movies where a character is given infantile qualities just to manipulate the viewing audiences emotion, the character of Celia serves to show a softer side of Minny.
Mammy from Gone with the Wind may have scolded Scarlett, but she was still a slave. Scarlett still had the upper hand. Mammy was only able to nag Scarlett because she was allowed to. Had she truly stepped out of line, her mouth could have been shut forever. Celia is friendly, open and depends on Minny. And when she does finally snap, she apologizes.
The reader then learns that Celia is prone to debilitating bouts of depression. Her inability to give the man she loves a child weighs heavily on her. Minny begins to see her in a new light.
A young woman eager to please, and one who can be easily hurt. Because of this, Minny slowly becomes more protective of Celia. The only problem is, while Minny shows a softer side with Celia, she becomes more aggressive and even hostile with her own children in the book. Actually, I need to correct that. Leroy is already abusive, and her youngest child Kindra is mouthy. As the novel ends, Leroy escalates his abuse, Kindra is even more bratty, and Minny winds up smacking her older daughter Sugar for gossiping about Celia.
Yet she has enough fire to be protective of Celia when the naked pervert is outside her home. At times both Aibileen and even the flashbacks of Constantine show women who seem to be a step behind. A recent example of a character turned infantile can be seen in the movie The Blind Side. Michael Oher is erroneously portrayed as a somewhat slow but sweet, as this is an important trait the pupil must have gentle giant. But as ever in Hollywood, the based-on-a-true-story defense will probably provide a certain amount of cover.
When Celia finally meets Hilly face to face at the Benefit, her nervousness results in drinking a bit too much and throwing up. And since Hilly is the main villain in the story, further ostracizing Celia is a way for Hilly to get back at her. In the novel, not only does Hilly control her own social group but those who retain maids in the Jackson area.
Quite a lot of power for one young woman. In the s it was usually the older the woman, the more power she wielded, whether through years of social contacts or the importance her spouse played in the community, or just being born into a family with wealth and influence.
Not so In The Help. Another issue that bears looking at is how an abused woman like Minny could raise a hand to defend Celia, not once but twice. Make her own damn man-catching dress. I mean, a floozy calling the society ladies is bad enough. But she has sat down and eaten lunch with me every single day since I started working here. That little one up under the window.
And that was fine with me…There are so many things Miss Celia is just plain ignorant about. She takes a deep breath through her nose and I see it. I see the white trash girl she was ten years ago. She was strong. We are three fools in the dining room crying. The Help. Plot Summary. Hypocrisy Writing, Storytelling, and Freedom. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does.
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Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on The Help can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. She's a Marilyn-Monroe look-alike who wears tight skimpy clothes probably something like this , much to the chagrin of the high-society ladies and much to the delight of their husbands.
Unlike those ladies, Celia wasn't born into high society. She's from Sugar Ditch, Mississippi, and was born and raised poor. Her marriage to Johnny Foote places her among Jackson's elite all of a sudden, but also right outside that circle.
See, Johnny is Hilly's ex — you can imagine, then, how much Hilly likes Celia. Hilly's antagonism toward her is one thing that unites Celia and Minny. Celia's biggest problem is that she believes she's only worthy of Johnny's love if she can give birth to children, but she's plagued by miscarriages. She comes to learn that her husband loves her for who she is, and that she can live a happy life even though people like Hilly and Elizabeth don't like her.
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