Friendly Affection and Trans-Racial Community Building in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help

The Help, winner of the 2009 Exclusive Books Boeke Prize, is the debut novel of American author Kathryn Stockett. Taking Jacques Derrida’s “Politics of Friendship” as the major theoretical framework, this research examines the transformation from the white community and the Black community to the trans-racial community through the emotional interaction between white mistresses and Black maids. The distinctively exclusive white community perpetuates racial discrimination and confronts Black others with hostility, while the racially injured Black people can only seek mutual refuge and friendly affection in the Black community. On the surface, the white community and the Black community are antagonistic. However, the racist system has entangled the emotions and fates of the three protagonists with different identities. In the book, when the Black people open their hearts to tell their stories and gain support and trust within the community, white people not only witness social injustice, but also unconditionally assume responsibility for the “other” when facing Black “others”. Based on the “law of unconditional love”, the novel breaks through the inherent limitations based on race, class, geography, etc., and calls for the advent of the politics of friendship and the formation of trans-racial communities.