Summary of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The novel The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, is one of the most influential novels about racism. The story begins in 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, with the birth of a little girl named Mae Mobley, her mother is Miss Leefolt. In this era, white race families have The Help, who are black women maids. The community treats The Help unfairly, bringing up the presence of racism.

The Leefolt family had a maid, who is Aibileen Clark. She is a mother figure to Mae Mobley because Miss Leefolt didn’t show any affection, as she is caught up with work, and her social life. Early in the novel, Miss Leefolt holds a lunch with many of her friends. Hilly Holbrook, one of Miss Leefolt’s guests discusses how The Help should have their bathroom outside of the house. Eugenia and better known as Skeeter is upset by Hilly’s plan. When the guests leave, and Miss Leefolt is outside, Skeeter asks Aibileen if she wishes to ever change anything; but she doesn’t reply. Skeeter also asks Aibileen if she ever knew Constantine, she is the help in Skeeter's house when she was young. She develops a friendship with her, when she goes off to school she writes letters, but one day she never got one back. Upon her arrival home, her long-time friend is gone.

Aibileen’s good friend, Minny Jackson, is the maid for Hilly Holbrook’s mother’s household. Hilly fires her mother's maid and starts to spread rumours that Minny steals. Aibileen asks Minny about her job loss, but she only says that is an incident involving a pie. Minny is now in search of a job but it is difficult, because of a new reputation of being a thief.

One day, Celia Foote, calls to question Miss Leefolt, Aibileen answers and response to Celia's question about a recommendation for a maid. Aibileen creates a story to suggest her friend Minny, who is in search of a job. During Minny’s interview, she gets to meet Celia and discovers that she is very nice and she doesn’t discriminate her for being black. Celia hires her and wants to keep Minny a secret from her husband. Celia is wanting to learn to please her husband and asks Minny to teach her how to cook and clean.

In the meantime, Skeeter’s passion for writing gets her a job at the Jackson Journal; but is to write about housekeeping, Skeeter needs help in this domain, thus she goes to see Aibileen. Skeeter learns that Aibileen’s son is dead has a start to a book about racism in his life. Skeeter is passionate about this and wants to start the same motif in her book. Skeeter wants to question The Help about their own life, to retrieve information of black workers in the South. Aibileen and Minny don’t want to tell their stories, but they decide to speak, but all the other maids decide not to. Skeeter takes a book from Hilly, and Hilly finds out, then tells the other housewives to disown Skeeter. Yule May, who is Hilly’s maid, asks for some money, so she could support her family, but Hilly refuses. Yule decides to steal one of her rings, this decision causes Yule to go to jail. After this incident, more maids from The Help decide to help Skeeter with her story.

Skeeter is unsure that the book will be enough material to stop racism within Jackson, Mississippi. Minny shares to Skeeter the story about the pie that leads her to lose her job. She shares that she put her human waste in a pie. Also, Minny shares that if they include this story in Skeeter’s book, that Hilly will find out that the book is about her and the other housewives in Jackson, Mississippi.

At the end of the novel, Skeeter publishes her book about The Help, but Hilly gets upset by it and wants revenge on the maids. By publishing, Skeeter gets a job of her dreams to write for a big journal in New York. The Jackson Journal is in demand for Skeeter’s old job, so Aibileen greatly takes on the challenge. Also, this takes suits her well, by knowing everything about housekeeping. Thus, Aibileen starts her new journey in writing, and passionately wants to make a novel about herself.