To Kill A Mockingbird and The Help

Last year in English we all read The Help, and some of us, not me, read To Kill a Mockingbird. I got around to reading Harper Lee's classic for the first time this summer, and I also recently watched the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. When I read the book I was surprised to find that it shares a few shocking similarities with The Help. They both depict small southern towns and focus on the white gentry while also making a point about the situation of black people in the South. Besides that, there is a short scebe in To Kill a Mockingbird in which Scout is coerced into joining her aunt Alexandra's social gathering. Lee depicts this as a really disgusting experience for Scout, who doesn't idnetify with any of the ladies at all, and is also surprised by their harshly racist conversation. It seems to me that Kathryn Stockett, the author of The Help, decided to explore this aspect of To Kill A Mockingbird in great detail in her book. But in this respect, The Help is flawed because instead of showing the repulsiveness of a gathering of rich prejudiced white women to play bridge, Stockett focuses on characters, some of who fit the situation, while others are made to be the heroes of the book just because they know they are living in an inherently unjust society. In this way, I think To Kill a Mocking bird far surpasses The Help as both a narrative and a commentary on the nature of societal problems in the South during Jim Crow.