Exploring concepts of representation conveyed in and by
The Help
through the phenomenological approach of reader-response theory
– A bachelor thesis by Tania Havris Lind –
first published in 2013 – revised in 2020
THE INTRODUCTION
‘I’s thinking I ought to do some reading. Might help me with my own writing.’
‘Find I can get my point across a lot better writing em down.’
Aibileen, The Help
According to the OED, the word representation has a Middle French origin and bears a large variation of meanings, among others ‘[the] act of evoking the thought or idea of someone or something’. In a literary context, the act of representation is inevitable; the characters of a text are represented by the author who writes it. This does not imply that the author functions as a God-like-presence in the text, who has the right to represent as he or she pleases, but rather that the author will always be burdened with the heavy responsibility attached to representation and thus can never be entirely freed from this. Neither could Kathryn Stockett when she wrote and published The Help. At the end of the novel, Stockett writes about her source of inspiration, of her fears about ‘crossing a terrible line, [by] writing in the voice of an African American person’ and how she acknowledges that she will never be able to fully understand what it felt like to be an African American woman in the state of Mississippi during the 1960’s. Stockett’s concern for her act of representation is an example of postcolonialism; a concept that denotes how the colonial aftermath has affected the way people perceive and experience the ‘disparate forms of representation, reading practices, attitudes and values’.
But what are the ‘forms of representation’ and how are they presented in and by the novel The Help? Additionally, if representation is an ‘act of evoking thought[s] or idea[s] of someone’ for example in the mind of a reader, then does the reader’s response to these ‘thought[s] or idea[s]’ not also constitute some sort of responsive representation? In order to understand how the responsive representation is formed in the mind of a reader, a theoretical essay on the matter must be applied to the argument. According to the theory of reader-response critic Wolfgang Iser, the concept of a ‘literary work’ emerges through a correlation between an author’s text and a reader’s realisation of it, meaning that the true potential of a text can unfold itself in the mind of a reader and thus evolve into a literary work. As a consequence, the representation done by an author in a text will inevitable become exposed to some sort of individual altering by the reader’s realisation of it, which then puts into question the extend of the author’s representational position.
In postcolonialism, the author’s representational position is constantly under close scrutiny and is regarded a troublesome conundrum by some postcolonial critics. However, assuming that representation is produced both by the author’s text and the reader’s realisation of it, could imply that the only way to avoid misrepresentation is if the text is only read by the group of readers, which the text represents e.g. Caucasian Southern women only being able to read novels about Caucasian Southern women, written by authors who are Caucasian Southern women, or African American Southern maids only being able to read novels about African American Southern maids, written by authors who are African American Southern maids.
Linking the issues at hand to The Help: if the authorial role of Stockett is put into question because of her given position as a Caucasian female author, will the same criteria also apply to the potential readers of The Help? For example: if a western Caucasian female university student reads The Help; a novel written by a Caucasian female author representing a Caucasian woman who helps African American suppressed women of the South gain agency through a sort of representation, will this scenario then constitute possible misrepresentation on the level of the reader, the author and the characters in the novel or will it not? To summarise, if the authorial origin of a representation is an issue, then will the reader’s individual altering of this representation through a reading process also constitute one?
The first part of my bachelor thesis contains an elaboration of the theories used in order to create a delimited theoretical framework in which a reader-response inspired phenomenological approach to the concepts of representation in The Help can unfold itself. The predominant part of bachelor thesis’ theoretical construct is based on reader-response theorist Wolfgang Iser’s essay The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach, while supporting references will be made to the essay Phenomenology of Reading by theorist Georges Poulet. W.J.T. Mitchell’s essay Representation provides an illustration of how basic representation functions. An essay produced by postcolonial critic Gayatri Spivak, as well as essays and references to fictional works written by postcolonial author Caryl Phillips provide the postcolonial perspective on the act of representation in correlation to The Help as a case study. The second part of my thesis reflects on the examination of the concepts of representation in The Help through a critical and phenomenological approach within the theoretical delimitations produced in the first part of my thesis. Finally, the third part of my thesis provides a conclusion to the concepts of representation revealed, alongside reflections on how the results might be applied henceforward.
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PUBLISHING MY REVISED BACHELOR THESIS…
I wrote my bachelor thesis in the fall of 2013. I had become a mom for the first time in the spring, and my son was just a few months old when I started writing my paper with guidance from my lector Eva Rask Knudsen.
I fell in love with postcolonialism from the first time I was introduced to the subject during the second or third semester. The whole notion of how acts of colonialism have shaped (and still shapes) the world we live in today captivated my interest instantly. The infatuation arose when I was introduced to The Theory of Knowledge on the fifth or sixth semester, and I immediately felt the need to find a way to combine my two passions in my upcoming bachelor thesis – and so I did.
I have decided to publish my bachelor thesis on my blog, because the combination and understanding of both postcolonialism and reader-response theory is still very much a part of my professional foundation when I work with communication, as well as my personal interests for how we talk about people around us – on both a national and global scale.
Much have happened since 2013 when I first handed in my bachelor thesis, so I have used some time to revise the thesis to make it more contemporary. The core is still intact – I’ve merely brushed the exterior up a bit.
I hope you will enjoy the revised version of my thesis, and please leave any constructive thoughts in the comment box below.
