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
PART IV – REPRESENTATION PRODUCING ‘AWARENESS OF EXISTENCE’
The awareness attached to the esthetic realisation of the reader is a concept elaborated on by critic Georges Poulet in Phenomenology of Reading, where he explains how the phenomenological process of reading makes the reader internalise the ideas of the author and thereby not only giving them ‘existence, but awareness of existence’.
Nevertheless, Poulet’s theory does not take into consideration the possible misrepresentation that the author behind the created ‘awareness of existence’ might provide; Stockett’s, as well as Skeeter’s act of representation still pose an issue due to the fact that they have both claimed some sort of representational right over women with a different background and skin colour than their own.
From a postcolonial point of view, the two women have continued the colonial tradition of predominantly portraying history through the eyes of Caucasian people; Skeeter edits and rewrites the stories provided by the maids and Stockett portrays her perception of her childhood memories of growing up in the segregated South, as well as her response to Susan Tucker’s book Telling Memories Among Southern Women.
One of the issues that arises from restricting or banning a contemporary author from producing ‘awareness of existence’ through representation is the opposite approach it might lead to: if the voice of the silenced part of history can only be spoken by its silenced subjects, it stands to reason that due to the theoretical idea of esthetic representation only the silenced subjects e.g. the maids in The Help can become the readers of each other’s stories in order to avoid possible esthetic misrepresentation.
To summarise, if an acceptable representation can only be performed by a given subject belonging to the represented group of people in question e.g. Aibileen being able to write her own book without the presence of Skeeter, then the reader of this self-representation must also possess the same identity as the represented e.g. Minny or any of the other maids if the issue of possible esthetic misrepresentation shall be minimised or even eliminated.
This approach to representation might seem like a solution to the issues of artistic and esthetic representation through the rendering of the possibility of misrepresentation. However, the structural idea behind it fails to disseminate the voice of the silenced; if only an African American maid can author a literary text about African American maids, and the only readers of this text have to be African American maids themselves, then the colonial man-made gap between people will either stay the same or worse: widen.
It illustrates a potential latent danger, which arguably lies beneath the various debates surrounding the postcolonial concept of representation: if the primary focus is placed on the author and the author’s ability to represent a silenced subject within an artistic text like Stockett’s representation of Aibileen, Minny and the other maids in The Help, then a consequence of the narrowness of these debates might turn out to unintentionally contribute to the continued silencing of the subject. This is not to be viewed as a dismissal of the postcolonial critical approach to the concept of representation, but rather as an attempt to convey an unconventional and theoretical approach to the contemporary act of representation: instead of trying to leap over the massive gap grafted by centuries of colonialism only to find that the gap is too wide, the author’s ability to create ‘awareness of existence’ of the silenced subjects through the ‘artistic’ element should be considered, alongside the possibility that the conveyed ‘awareness of existence’ may eventually contribute to the silenced subject claiming the right to agency.
The Help illustrates an example of this approach and the effect of it: had Aibileen, Minny and the other maids chosen not to overlook the steadfast fact that Skeeter represented the only opportunity for them to voice their perspective of the South, they would either have had to wait many years before being able to voice it on their own or would never have gotten the chance at all. This is definitely ‘a sorry fact’, but none the less a fact.
In brief, by choosing the lesser evil e.g. to have their perspective represented by a Caucasian woman instead of being forced to keep it silenced, the maids are able to claim agency and thus convey ‘awareness of existence’ of themselves and their perspectives.
Reverse representation
But what happens when the silenced subject claims agency and begins to form representations of their reversed version of the ‘Other’* (e.g. Spivak’s ‘Other’ refers to the colonisers view of the colonial subject, then it would be reasonable to apply the same expression in a reverse situation where the colonial subject refers to the coloniser)?
In The Help, the maids’ perspectives not only reflect their self-representation as well as their individual representation of each other; they also reflect their representation of the Caucasian people for whom they work. The reverse approach to representation is something that the postcolonial critics have yet to elaborate on. This leads back to the question of whether or not the representational position of the author should be restricted to the group that the author belongs e.g. the example of Caucasian Southern women or African America Southern maids.
The aimed critique of the postcolonial critics’ lack of elaboration on the matter is not to be considered a dismissal of the represented silenced subject’s rights to voice her (or his) opinion or that her (or his) opinion, or rather response, is either wrongful or incorrect; it is rather an expressed concern for the lack of attention that this hidden issue has received from the critics.
In The Help, Minny actually illustrates this representational problem when she refuses to talk about her employer, Miss Celia. No one can really know for sure why Minny refuses to do so, but perhaps Minny sees some sort of resemblance between Miss Celia’s situation and her own; Miss Celia is already being misrepresented by Hilly and the other ladies of the Jackson Junior League and is arguably even more isolated from the Jackson society, than the African American maids are; Hilly has no problem hiring African American maids to work in her home and around her children, but she will never let Miss Celia set a foot inside her house.
To summarise, the issues attached to one author’s act of representation should also apply to another author’s act of representation and should in contemporary time not depend on any sort of race related factor: representation is representation regardless of who is producing it.
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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.
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