Monologue – MISS SKEETER

Moments:

The help

• Coming up with the idea to write the book
• Nightmares
• When her mother tells her the story about continuing and she realises that their all stuck in a web they can’t escape, and they don’t even realise their stuck in it.
• Miss Skeeters upbringing, like a reflection after her mum tells her Constintine’s story

 

I was raised in this house. From the moment mother brought me back from the hospital, Constantine was there. Her face was the first i remember smiling with. She would hold ever so gentilly. Like i was made of glass. I remember smiling up at her kind brown eyes. I could see the world behind those eyes. Years of wisdom, joy. And now I know equally years of horror and betrayal.

 

Never the less she was my angel. Seeing her walk through the door in the mornings with her white uniform, white stockings, and white shoes, and her chocolate skin. Her coloured skin fasinated me as a child. I went through a stage of wanting to have brown skin too. It was different…special. and … well.. I wanted to be special like Contintine.

 

She was my hero. She was always there. She taught me how to ride a bike, make pancakes, brush my teeth, braid my hair…. But most importantly she taught me to be kind. She knew what it was like out there. More than anyone. How cruel the world can be. How cruel white people can be. She knew what i was bound to become, like every other white girl becomes. clones of their mothers.

 

Our help would raise us, nurtur us and love us. Then when we were old enough we would hire help of our own and forget. Forget all the things OUR help had done for us when we were younger. We would turn into wiches. Ritch snobby witches who only cared about their bridge club meetings, and keeping the husband happy. Like Miss Hilly. Oh god she would kill me for saying that. But surely we’re all entitled to say anything with some truth behind it. MISS HILLY.

 

I won’t forget. How can I forget. Costintine was my mother over my mother. Does that make scence. No. Contintine was my mother in my eyes. While my real mother would sit and read the paper or drive down the street to the hair salon, Constintine would be up sitting next to me up my tree house looking out for sneeky pirrots, or sitting next to me upstairs on a rainy day reading my favourite stories. She was patient…. And honest…. She always told me the truth…. That way I knew i could always trust her.

 

oh , i remeber this thing she used to do with her hand, pressing her thumb into my palm. it was our little sign, a sign that told me what she had to say was IMPORTANT…. I wish she could be here now…. I know she would be proud…. I hope she would be proud… sometimes if i just close my eyes i can picture her sitting beside me…. I wish someone anyone could press their thumb into my palm now, assure me that i am doing the right thing….

she left… she just left… no goodbye hug, wave, not even a letter to explain…. For years i couldn’t understand it… blamed her… blamed myself…. But now i have my mother to blame…. No actually i have every white citizen of the united states of america to blame…They took her away from me…. They left her with no other choice…. They drove her out of town with no job, no home, no money, no hope….and…. they … well… they killed her….. They broke her heart and killed her…. There’s no explanation for that…. No reasoning that can make any part of it right…. What they don’t understand is it doesn’t just affect the coloured it affects all of us…. Whether we like it or not we are all part of this cruel cycle…. You just have to walk down the street to see it…. Whites only church, whites only libary, whites only toilets, whites only buses, whites only shops, whites only schools….. What does it all mean…. When will they realise this is all wrong….

 

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve spend my whole life thinking the world of Costintine, she was my friend, my family, my hope, my angel. When i was  about 15 my mother looked me in the eye and said the only duty I owe to god is to be a good wife, have children, and keep my husband happy… nothing else mattered… In her eyes, and in everyone else’s eyes that was the guideline to a successful life. It was measured in the husbands happiness and money. Hahaha.  When i told her i was going back to school to be a writer… she cried… she stood there in front of my 19 year old self and… and she told me how ashamed she was to be my mother…. Lord, Hilly had already a husband… she was pretty, well mannered.. She just fitted in….. “Why can’t you just fit in Skeeter” she used to say…. When I was 12 we had our first school dance at school. No one had asked me to go with them. I was tessed everyday after it. Skeeters ugly, Skeeters too tall, Skeeters too loud, Skeeters different, no boy will ever love skeeter. That day, Contintine found me after school crying under my favorite tree in the our backyard. I told her what had happened and made her promise not to tell mother. I was so scared of her reaction. Contintine said nothing for a while just held my hand. There’s power in silence, I think. When she was ready she said that I WAS different, but that it wasn’t a burden it was a gift… i was going to do some special with the life I’d been given.. I was going to make a difference, because i was brave, and smart, and kind. I’ve never forgotton those words… BRAVE, SMART, KIND. They were the exact words i needed to hear. With them in mind, i packed my bags and left home the next morning walked straight pass my mother and smiled…. I knew in my heart I had more in me than being a house wife…. And Contintinw told me anyway that men are strange creatures, if we think about finding the right man for too long we wind up with the wrong one or in some cases many wrong ones, but if we follow our hearts and does what makes us happy the right one will appear… and he will love you, for just being you, not trying to be anyone else. I’ll make you proud contintine, promise i’ll make you proud.