Flashcards for The Help

Aibileen Clark

Aibileen Clark is one of the three narrators in the novel and serves as its moral compass.

character

Celia Foote

Celia Foote is a warm-hearted newcomer who finds herself socially ostracized in Kathryn Stockett's The Help, which takes place in early-1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

character

Charlotte Phelan

Charlotte Phelan is Skeeter's mother in Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

character

Constantine Bates

Constantine Bates is the longtime Black maid for the Phelan family and the person who most profoundly influenced Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan's moral development.

character

Elaine Stein

Elaine Stein is a senior editor at Harper & Row in New York City, playing a crucial but mostly off-page role in The Help.

character

Elizabeth Leefolt

Elizabeth Leefolt is a secondary antagonist in Kathryn Stockett's The Help, serving as a lens through which the novel reveals the subtle cruelties of the white middle class in mid-century Jackson, Mississippi.

character

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is the white, college-educated protagonist of The Help, driven by her journalistic ambition and moral awakening, which are central to the novel's plot.

character

Hilly Holbrook

Hilly Holbrook is the main antagonist of The Help, reigning as the queen of Jackson, Mississippi's white social elite in the early 1960s. As president of the Junior League, she uses her social power to enforce the racial hierarchies of the Jim Crow South with a cheerful yet self-righteous attitude.

character

Johnny Foote

Johnny Foote is a minor yet morally significant character in The Help, primarily known as the devoted husband of Celia Foote.

character

Leroy Jackson

Leroy Jackson is Minny Jackson's husband in Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

character

Mae Mobley Leefolt

Mae Mobley Leefolt is the young daughter of Elizabeth and Raleigh Leefolt, and while she doesn't take up much space on the page, her presence in Kathryn Stockett's The Help is deeply significant.

character

Minny Jackson

Minny Jackson is one of the three main narrators of The Help.

character

Stuart Whitworth

Stuart Whitworth is a secondary yet thematically important character in Kathryn Stockett's The Help, primarily serving as Skeeter Phelan's love interest and reflecting the social pressures faced by white Southern women in early 1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

character

Treelore Clark

Treelore Clark is Aibileen's only son, who dies before the story begins, yet his presence looms over the entire narrative as a haunting reminder of loss.

character

“Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.”

This line is delivered by Charlotte Phelps, Skeeter Phelps's mother, to her daughter towards the end of Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help (2009).

Charlotte Phelps (Skeeter's mother)

“I always order the chocolate pie.”

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009), this line connects to Minny Jackson, the bold and skilled Black maid whose chocolate pie becomes a defining symbol in the novel.

Hilly Holbrook / Minny Jackson (associated) · Referenced across multiple chapters; climax revealed in later chapters

“I am neither thermometer nor thermostat. I am a writer.”

This quote is from Skeeter Phelan, the ambitious young white journalist and main character in Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009), which takes place in early 1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

Skeeter Phelan

“Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.”

This reflection comes from Skeeter Phelan, the young white journalist striving to make her mark in Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009).

Skeeter Phelan

“The help. That's what they call us. Like we don't even have names.”

This line is spoken by Aibileen Clark, one of the main Black domestic workers and narrators in Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009).

Aibileen Clark

“All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries.”

This line is spoken by Aibileen Clark, one of the main characters in Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009).

Aibileen Clark

“I used to believe in em. I don't anymore. They in one of them books that says you going to hell if you love somebody of a different color.”

This line is spoken by Aibileen Clark in Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009) during one of her heartfelt conversations that reveal her changing inner life.

Aibileen Clark

“You is kind, you is smart, you is important.”

This tender, repeated affirmation is spoken by Aibileen Clark, a Black domestic worker and the main narrator of the novel, to Mae Mobley Leefolt, the white toddler she looks after in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

Aibileen Clark

Constantine's Letters

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, Constantine's letters represent the hidden truths, broken connections, and the heavy toll that racial injustice takes on personal relationships.

Help (The Manuscript/Book)

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the manuscript that Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny put together in secret reflects their shared bravery, honesty, and the power of voices often overlooked.

Mae Mobley as Symbol of Hope

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, Mae Mobley Leefolt represents hope — the hope that the cycle of racism can be broken in the next generation.

Minny's Chocolate Pie

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, Minny Jackson's chocolate pie represents the hidden strength of the oppressed and the consequences of breaking silence.

The Junior League

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the Junior League symbolizes the strict social hierarchy and enforced conformity of 1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

The Separate Bathroom

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the separate bathroom designated for Black domestic workers serves as a stark symbol of Jim Crow segregation and the dehumanizing mindset of white supremacy.

Foreshadowing

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, foreshadowing unfolds through small, powerful details that subtly prepare the reader for the novel's dramatic outcomes.

Juxtaposition

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, juxtaposition drives the novel's moral clarity.

Irony

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, irony serves as the novel's most powerful moral tool, highlighting the disconnect between the self-image of white Jackson society and its underlying cruelty.

Frame Narrative

In The Help, Kathryn Stockett creates a frame narrative by weaving in the oral stories of Black maids within the broader project that Skeeter Phelan is preparing for publication.

Symbolism

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, objects and spaces are rich with racial and social meanings that a simple description of power dynamics could never convey.

Unreliable Narrator

In The Help, Kathryn Stockett uses unreliable narration most effectively through the shifting first-person perspectives of Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny.

Motif

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, food serves as a powerful motif that weaves together themes of race, labor, and power in ways a simple summary can't capture.

Tone

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the tone serves as one of the novel's most finely tuned tools, shifting with each narrator's voice to reveal the same Mississippi setting from deeply different emotional perspectives.

set her jaw

Tightened and stiffened her face, especially her mouth and chin, in a way that signals she has made up her mind and will not discuss the matter further.

phrase · Chapter 3

coloreds

A period term, now offensive, used in the Jim Crow–era American South to refer to Black people; the novel uses it to reflect the language and attitudes of 1960s Mississippi.

noun · Chapter 4

sitting in the back of the bus

A reference to racial segregation laws that forced Black passengers to sit in the rear of public buses, away from white passengers; used here as shorthand for the daily humiliations of Jim Crow life.

phrase · Chapter 4

reckon

A Southern and informal word meaning to think, suppose, or figure something out; used here in place of 'I think' or 'I guess.'

verb · Chapter 6

ain't

A nonstandard contraction used throughout the novel in place of 'am not,' 'is not,' 'are not,' 'has not,' or 'have not'; a marker of Southern vernacular speech.

Chapter 7

the Terrible Awful

The characters' private name for Minny's act of revenge against Hilly Holbrook — baking her own feces into a chocolate pie and serving it to Hilly — treated as an unspeakable but defining event.

noun · Chapter 8

county jail

The local lock-up run by the county sheriff; in this context it represents the very real threat of arrest and imprisonment that Black maids face for participating in the secret book project.

noun · Chapter 12

Home Help Sanitation Initiative

Hilly Holbrook's proposed social policy requiring white households to install separate outdoor toilets for their Black domestic workers, justified by racist fears about disease; a central symbol of Jim Crow-era segregation.

noun · Chapter 2

Junior League

A women's civic organization made up of upper-class white women who organize charity events and community projects; in this novel it is the social hub of Jackson's white elite and a space where racial hierarchies are enforced.

noun · Chapter 4

manuscript

The unpublished, handwritten or typed draft of a book; here it refers to the secret collection of Black maids' stories that Skeeter is compiling to send to a New York publisher.

noun · Chapter 12

pseudonym

A false name used by an author to hide their real identity; the book the women produce is published under one so that no one in Jackson can be identified as its source.

noun

advance copies

Finished copies of a book sent to the author before the official publication date, so they can see the final printed product ahead of the public release.

noun · Chapter 18

plain as a paper bag

A Southern idiom meaning completely expressionless and unremarkable; to keep one's face this way is to deliberately show no emotion so as not to provoke or alarm a white employer.

phrase · Chapter 11

theyself

A nonstandard Southern vernacular form of 'themselves'; used in the novel to render the authentic spoken dialect of the Black characters.

Chapter 11

gon

A contracted Southern vernacular form of 'going to,' indicating a future intention; used throughout to capture the spoken dialect of the Black characters in the novel.

Chapter 1

Daughters of America

A fictional whites-only social organization in the novel whose meeting becomes the scene where Constantine's mixed-race daughter causes a scandal, leading to Constantine's dismissal.

noun

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a major American civil rights organization that fought racial segregation and discrimination; its field secretary Medgar Evers is assassinated in Chapter 13.

noun · Chapter 13

field secretary

A regional organizer and representative for a civil rights organization who works directly in a community to register voters, investigate racial violence, and coordinate protests.

noun · Chapter 13

testimonies

First-person spoken or written accounts of personal experience; here the word refers to the individual stories the Black maids share about their working lives, which form the content of Skeeter's book.

noun · Chapter 15

mutual destruction

A situation in which both sides of a conflict hold damaging information about the other, so that if one person attacks, both will be ruined; it is what keeps Hilly from exposing Minny.

phrase

Ole Miss

The University of Mississippi, the flagship state university; in the early 1960s it was a racially segregated institution attended by white students, and Skeeter's degree from there marks her class and regional background.

noun · Chapter 3