4 Reasons
Why Aibileen from The Help says 'Law'
Aibileen Clark from The
Help by Kathryn Stockett, cleans, cooks, and raises the children for Mr.
and Miss. Leefolt. Aibileen’s specialty is raising kids and everyday Aibileen
encounters something different from watching the white people. She sees so many
things that sometimes the only thing to describe what she is seeing is… ‘Law’.
1. When she is proud.
It
isn’t hard to make Aibileen proud, but one thing that made her especially proud
was her son, Treelore. Treelore was young when he died at work but that didn’t
stop her from being proud of him. Before he died he started to write a
book. A book about being a colored man
that was living and working in Mississippi. Aibileen was so proud of Treelore
all should thought was, “Law, that made me proud” (Stockett, 2). Usually when
Aibileen says something serious she’s not lying, she means everything she says.
2. When she is disappointed.
One
thing you have to understand is that when you work for a white family, you also
work for their friends. And white people have a lot of friends especially Miss
Leefolt. Aibileen has to deal with them every day. Aibileen tries to stay
around Miss Leefolt for as long as she can but sometimes what they talk about
disappoints her because of how rude they can be. One day Miss Leefolt had her
friends over for bridge and Miss Hilly (the leader and the rudest) started to
talk about her outdoor bathroom plan because she doesn’t want to go in the same
bathroom as the “help”. “Law, not this mess again. They all look over at me
straightening the silver drawer in the sideboard and I know it’s time for me to
leave” (Stockett, 7). Aibileen gets so disappointed because she doesn’t do
anything wrong but for some reason they always look at her like she does.
3. When she is worried.
Sometimes Aibileen is just trying
to look out for her friends but it makes them mad and that’s when she realizes
maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. One of Aibilieen’s best friends if
Minny Jackson. Minny works for Miss Walter so her job is to not only please
Miss Walter - which isn’t too hard - but also try to please Miss Hilly. Now Miss Hilly is probably the hardest
person to please, everything has to go her way and if it doesn’t somebody
either ends up hurt, in jail, or without a job. One day they were on the bus
and Aibileen had overheard Miss Leefolt and Miss Hilly talking about Minny and
how she wasn’t a good cook so Aibileen decided it would be best to tell Minny
about it. Well Minny didn’t take it very nicely, “‘she ever say that to me, she
gone get a piece a Minny for lunch.’ She huff down the steps… Law, maybe I
should a just kept it to myself” (Stockett, 14). Now Aibileen knows that it was
right to tell Minny but sometimes Minny gets so mad Aibileen gets worried about
what Minny will say/do after she tells her.
4. When she is surprised.
For a couple months Aibileen and
Miss Skeeter have been working together on a book, a book that includes Minny
and various other maids. Miss Skeeter asked them to help her out because her
goal in writing this book is to change the way people think in Mississippi and
Jackson, Mississippi in particular. They all worked so hard to complete the
book and send it in before the New Year to a publishing company in New York
City and when Miss Skeeter first got the news from the company she went
straight to Aibileen’s, “’Harper and Row,’ I say, ‘wants to publish it.’
Everyone is quiet. Even the flies stop buzzing… Aibileen lets out a whoop like
I’ve never heard come out of her before. ‘Law, I can’t believe it!’” (Stockett,
452). This was one of the biggest moments in the book because they had not
expected the book to do so well and they thought it would be denied so Aibileen
could not hold in her joy when she heard it actually was going to happen.
Aibileen is one of my favorite characters because she always
knows how to help someone and she puts everyone before herself. Throughout the
book she uses the saying ‘law’ to express her emotions. She says it when she is
happy, sad, excited, worried, and disappointed. There is not one thing Aibileen
does not use ‘law’ to describe.
