Vocabulary in The Help

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The unpublished, handwritten or typed draft of a book; here it refers to the secret collection of Black maids' stories that Skeeter is compiling to send to a New York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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.