The Help: Genre 1 key example

In the mode of historical fiction, the novel then focuses on the stories of a few fictional characters within that historical reality. This separates historical fiction from other similar genres, like social or political fiction. While those genres seek to make some kind of moral or political comment upon the situations that they depict, historical fiction instead simply aims to tell a story with history as an aesthetic backdrop. As a result, The Help tells an often rather romanticized story of maids who have to collaborate with a well-meaning white woman to try to affect change. The story's genre is complicated by the fact that much of the story is based on events in Kathryn Stockett's own life, though the novel isn't generally considered to be autofiction.

The Help also interacts with a larger tradition of African American literature. While The Help itself would not be included in this genre because it was written by a White author, its characters often discuss African American literature, and there are allusions throughout the book. Aibileen says that she and her son Treelore both read Invisible Man, the classic novel by the Black author Ralph Ellison. Aibileen also expresses a desire to read Frederick Douglass, the 19th-century abolitionist who wrote a well-known memoir about his experience of enslavement. Skeeter also makes reference to To Kill a Mockingbird, another novel written by a White author that concerns problems of race and racism. The Help situates its historical narrative within the context of literature by and about Black Americans.