Aibileen Clark Sparknotes

Aibileen Clark is a middle aged black maid and nanny, employed by Elizabeth Leefolt. She is one of the narrators of the story.

Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a young white woman who recently returned home after graduating from college. She is interested in journalism and, with the help of around a dozen maids, writes a manuscript about the lives of the help starting on page 144. She is one of the narrators of the book.

Minny Jackson is a black maid with a big mouth that gets her into trouble. She first works for Miss Walters, Hilly Holbrook’s mother, until page 21 and later on works for Celia Foote. She is also Aibileen’s best friend and one of the narrators of the story.

Hilly Holbrook is the president of the Junior League in Mississippi and

the childhood friend of Elizabeth and Skeeter. She is married to a future politician. She attempts to control the other white women with threats, and becomes desperate and pitiful when it eventually doesn’t work.
Elizabeth Leefolt is a white woman who is childhood friends with Skeeter and Hilly, and has two children named Mae Mobley and Raleigh.

She is the employer of Aibileen, and is easily led by Hilly. She is an awful mother to Mae Mobley, so Aibileen becomes her primary caretaker.

Celia Foote is a new resident of Jackson, Mississippi, and eventually hires Minny Jackson as a maid on page 42. Celia tries to hide Minny from her husband, Johnny, so he would think she did all the cooking and cleaning herself. She dresses suggestively, but is very sweet and

naïve.

The story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s.

The main conflict of the novel was caused by Skeeter Phelan and several of the maids writing a book about what it’s like to be a maid in Mississippi.

Skeeter loses her best friends, Hilly and Elizabeth, in the process, while Aibileen, Minny, and the rest of the maids risk their lives. These women fight against the social norms of the South and hope that one day there will be equality between white and colored people. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny go against the social structures and cause several problems for the white women of Jackson. Starting in Chapter 30, the white women begin to realize that the book is about Jackson, and some of them fire their maids for writing about them. Hilly notices that Aibileen wrote about Elizabeth, and on page 440, tries to frame her for stealing. Aibileen almost goes to jail for this, but instead she is fired. Once the book is published, it helps to seal the bridge between the white women and the black maids. Skeeter moves to New York to work as an editor and gives Aibileen her Miss Myrna news column.

1. Miss Skeeter was inspired by Aibileen to write a novel about what it’s like to work for the white women of Jackson, Mississippi. After much persuasion, Aibileen agrees to be a part of the book on page 121. Aibileen convinces Minny to share her stories also. Once Minny gives in, around a dozen other maids line up to talk as well.

2. Minny is hired by a strange lady named Celia Foote on page 42, after being out of work for a while. It took her

some time to find a new job after Miss Walter, because Hilly had spread rumours that Minny was a thief. After Hilly did this, Minny sought revenge and baked her a pie that had her feces in it.
3. Hilly introduces the Home Help Sanitation Initiative on page 70, stating that it is unsanitary for Jackson families to use the same bathroom as their help. For Jackson’s maids, this was just one more source of humiliation.
4. Hilly starts to become suspicious of Skeeter. Hilly finds a book of colored rules in Skeeter bag and blackmails her to write about the Home Help Sanitation Initiative in the newspaper on page 213. In the paper, Skeeter “makes a typo” that instructs the people of Jackson to bring toilets to Hilly’s house. Then Skeeter places several toilets on her front lawn, which humiliates Hilly. This causes Skeeter to get kicked out of bridge club and she loses her editorial position.
5. The book is published on page 461. At first, it has no effect on their town, but after it was reviewed on television, it becomes infamous. Starting in Chapter 30, the white women begin to realize that the book is about Jackson, and some of them fire their maids for writing about them.
6. Skeeter Phelan moves to New York to work as an editor for Elaine Stein. She gives her Miss Myrna column to Aibileen, on page 512, after she’s fired by Elizabeth. The white women begin to realize that they don’t treat their maids with enough respect.

The theme of this book is race.

The first example that identifies the theme is that blacks and whites must use different facilities in this setting. When Louvenia’s grandson, Robert, unknowingly uses a whites only bathroom, he was beaten and blinded on page 117. The second example of this theme is shows that colored people are denied opportunities for professional advancement. On page 512, Skeeter gives Aibileen her Miss Myrna column, but she’s only allowed to write it if word doesn’t get out that a colored woman is running it. Lastly, White people see black people as diseased, as shown by Hilly Holbrook’s Home Help Sanitation Initiative. She writes for the newspapers, “Whites can become permanently disabled by nearly all of these [colored] diseases…” on page 184.

I chose this passage because it shows the whole purpose of writing the book and risking the lives of more than a dozen maids. Skeeter tells how she lost several things from the book-her friends, her fiancé, her editorial position for the newspaper-but it was still worth it because she no longer has to hide her opinion.