4 Reasons Why Aibileen from The Help says 'Law'

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.