1982. In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.

        Violence in 'The Help' is used explicitly to draw attention to implicit power struggles and harmful social structures. Violent incidents between generations, races, and genders all show who really has the power and who is forced to live in fear. Aibileen, the protagonist, is a black maid in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. She observes the violence around herself, and is driven to write a book revealing it all.

    In a beginning scene, Miss Leefolt is speaking on the phone, when her two-year-old daughter pulls out the cord. Then "Miss Leefolt slap Baby Girl on the back of her bare legs so hard I jump from the sting" (Stockett 22). Immediately after, the housekeeper and nanny Aibileen tries to comfort Baby Girl, and she slaps her. This is so much more than an upset child. In the context of the Jim Crow South, this is a synechdoche of the practice where in children learn immoral behaviors from their parents. No child is born racist, but when Miss Leefolt reprimands both her daughter and her maid for an interruption, Baby Girl learns firstly how to treat her own misbehaving daughter someday, and secondly, that Aibileen is partially to blame for the pain her mother caused her.  This violent scene works into Aibileen's frustration with the social situation, and her desire to change things. 

        Aibileen also describes the violent death of her son, Treelore; "One night he working late at the Scanlon-Taylor mill, lugging two-by-fours to the truck, splinters slicing all the way through the glove. He too small for that kind a work, too skinny, but he need the job...He slip off the loading dock...Tractor trailer didn't see him and crushed his lungs for he could move. By the time I found out, he was dead"( Stockett 3). Treelore was an incredibly intelligent young man. The image of 'splinters slicing all the way through the glove' is violent in and of itself, and shows how fierce and unfitting the work was for him. Had he been white, Treelore would be at University on a full scholarship, and never would have needed such a dangerous job. Although indirectly, his violent death was the work of racism and inequality. Aibileen feels this underlying injustice, saying "I just didn't feel so accepting anymore" ( Stockett 3). This experience is important, because it is when she becomes actively discontented with race relations in the south. Also, it puts her in a desperate situation with nothing to loose, which allows her begin a dangerous project. 

        The violence in 'The Help' reinforced the unjust systems which infuriate Aibileen and inspire her to write about the truth in Mississippi. Although indirect, the incidents of violence are connect to racial prejudice and injustice. This gives them powerful meaning in the context of Aibileen's life and struggles in a racist society.