Both ‘The Help’ by Kathryn Stockett and ‘Mansfield Park’ by Jane Austen include similar themes throughout their novels these include ‘Gender’, ‘The Home’, ‘Love’, and most importantly ‘Society and Class’. I have looked on numerous websites for information and other interpretations for these themes all of which I shall reference at the bottom if you wish to read more into them.
In ‘The Help’ the theme of ‘Gender’ is not as important as it is in Mansfield Park. However, the theme of ‘Gender’ is explored through different races. ‘The Help’ explores the rules of governing gender in a Mississippi town in the early 1960’s. The white women are valued in society mainly due to the fact they are able to produce children who are loved and cared for by the black women “Oh, we’re gonna have some kids. […] I mean, kids is the only thing worth living for.” . Unfortunately there are lack of jobs available for both races however Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny dare to challenge this statement. In comparison, Jane Austen includes the theme of ‘Gender’ through marriage. As well as ‘The Help’ women are mainly valued to to their ability to produce children, however as well as this it is considered their duty to marry and the only choice most women have is to say “yes” or “no” when a man proposes to them. If it is a man of a higher status than what the woman was born into it was never heard of the woman to reply “no” which is why it is a shock when Fanny Price rejects her marriage proposal.
‘The Help’ also includes the theme of ‘The Home’ which gives the reader the chance to explore each characters privet lives. The white women are expected not to work – neither in nor out of their homes. Black women however, are expected to work only in the homes of these white women performing jobs such as caring for their children and cooking their meals. Another part of this theme is the difference between the black women’s homes and the white women’s homes. The maids in the novel take pride in their work and their own home whilst the white women only take pride in their appearance as they leave the maids to take care of their children and their home. In ‘Mansfield Park’ this theme plays a huge part in the novel. The homes of the characters in this story represent their characteristics as Lord Bertram’s home of ‘Mansfield Park’ reflects his social class and status as does the Price household. Home can change when people move to new homes and change when people refurnish however, for the characters here in the novel home is memories, familiarity and habit and most important reflect who they are. For some of the characters their home is tied to their wealth. However, this is the case for both novels.
The theme of ‘Love’ is also noted throughout both novels. ‘The Help’ explores the theme of ‘Love’ when trying to conquer the feeling of racial hate towards the blacks. The novel as a whole is about trying to counteract the hate and irrationality through acts of love and courage. The characters do this by the means of writing the novel through the story telling, the close relationships, interviews and team work. They get through these times by never giving up their faith and more importantly not giving up on each other. “The more I look, the more I start to understand what’s going on here. I don’t know why I’m just now getting this. Minny made us put that pie story in to protect us. Not to protect herself, but to protect me and the other maids.” Throughout Mansfield Park the characters are constantly falling in love and causing a lot of confusion which therefore challenges characters’ attitudes and preconceptions. Many of the characters throughout the novel fall for people who don’t exactly love them back, they try to love people who they can’t, and they try to fall out of love with people and fail. This therefore makes this theme a very complex theme throughout the novel.
Finally and more importantly, the theme of social class. Both Stockett and Austen explore this theme in great detail when they include many of the different social classes and their attitudes to the other classes. Where Stockett writes about the inner workings of a segregated society against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s America, Austen writes about a huge drastic change in society where everything was changing and improving for both the upper and middle class (The Industrial Revolution).
References for more information:
The Room of Requirement. 