Chapter 5-6: Skeeter

Chapter 5: Skeeter
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EngelsMiddelbare schoolhavoLeerjaar 5

This lesson contains 18 slides, with text slides.

Items in this lesson

Chapter 5: Skeeter

Slide 1 - Slide

1. Writing style Skeeter
- more formal than the sections written in the voices of Minny and Aibileen
- Minny, Aibileen: dialect, phonetic, and informal language
<-> Skeeter: grammatical rules, fewer contractions/figurative language 
Skeeter’s voice than they do in those narrated by Minny and Aibileen. The formality of
the syntax and a more sophisticated word choice and vocabulary also serve to distinguish
between the diction of Skeeter’s sections and other sections of the novel. 

Slide 2 - Slide

2. background info Skeeter/Hilly
- college roommates
- Hilly left  to get married
- Skeeter stayed on to finish her degree. 
=> very close friends for quite some time.

Slide 3 - Slide

3. Eugenia/Skeeter
On the day she was born: Skeeter’s older brother Carlton
saw his newborn sister and said she was not a baby, but a “skeeter.” 
=>  “long and leggy and mosquito-thin” 

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4. a. Skeeter/her mom/their maid
-difficult relationship with her mom (impatience)
-> Her mom is concerned that Skeeter will never find a husband (spinsterhood would be  tragic) + berates her
- positive relationship and a close-knit bond with Constantine 


Slide 5 - Slide

4.b. Constantine - Demetrie?
- youngest child, left out of the activities of her older siblings. - - - Constantine/Demetrie: confidante + friend
- Constantine:   first person to compliment Skeeter + tell her she was pretty; supported her and built her up. 

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5. letter by Constantine
When Skeeter returns from college after skipping her own graduation ceremony, Constantine is gone. 

Skeeter’s mother refuses to explain: Constantine has gone to live with her people in Chicago

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6. irony?
"I had to accept that Constantine, my one true ally, had left me to fend for myself with these people."

these people = Skeeter's family
=> feels a better connection with Constantine

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7. Skeeter as outcast
- physical appearance (ugly)
- not accepted or included by her peers
- her height and frizzy hair 
- does not feel at home; feels lost in Jackson 

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Chapter 6: Skeeter
1. Summarize the letter Elaine Stein sends to Skeeter. Include the advice that Stein offers to her.

Slide 10 - Slide

Elaine Stein: before Skeeter applying at Harper & Row or a similar publisher in New York:
-> minimum 5 years experience
-> get an entry-level job at a local newspaper + practice writing.
=> Skeeter should write about what disturbs her, especially if it
does not bother anyone else

Slide 11 - Slide

2. response
Elaine Stein’s letter is both encouraging and grounding:
-> Skeeter: list of ideas of items that disturb her + sends it
-> asks for a job at a local paper -> writing the Miss Myrna columns, answering domestic help questions

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3. irony?
- job requires domestic experience + expertise, which Skeeter doesn't have at all

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4. Skeeter's mom
Skeeter's mom worries that the job will not help Skeeter find
a husband 
+ she asks her if she is attracted to men or women

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5. help for the Miss Myrna columns
 does not know her own maid well enough to ask her for help 
=> Aibileen

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6. Elizabeth's response
Elizabeth reluctantly agrees, but insists that Aibileen not spend very much time helping Skeeter; it cannot interfere
with her work in the house. ( Aibileen: proprietary)

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7. Treelore's project
Treelore: wanted to write a book about his own
experiences working for a white man in Jackson, Mississippi.
-> wrote the first 50 pages of the book before his death

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8. info about Constantine
Aibileen: Constantine did not quit—she was fired
+  reveals that Constantine has a daughter
-> was born with pale skin described as “high yellow,” (mixed race)

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