The Help characters

Appears from the start

A middle-aged Black maid in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s, who has spent her life raising white families' children. Wise, devout, and observant, she is quietly grieving the recent death of her grown son and pours her tenderness into the neglected little white girl she now cares for. She narrates much of the story.

First appears in chapter 2

Aibileen's closest friend, a Black maid famous for her cooking and her sharp, defiant tongue. Bold and quick-tempered, she struggles to hold jobs because she refuses to be humbled by her white employers, and she carries burdens of her own at home.

First appears in chapter 2

A young white woman just home from college, tall and awkward and set apart from her friends by her ambition to become a writer. Uneasy with the rigid racial rules of her Jackson social circle, she is also troubled by the sudden, unexplained departure of the beloved Black maid who raised her.

First appears in chapter 2

The domineering queen of Jackson's white society and Skeeter's longtime friend. Charming to her equals but ruthless beneath, she polices the town's racial and social order, and she promotes an initiative to require separate bathrooms for Black domestic workers.

Appears from the start

A tense, insecure young housewife who employs Aibileen and defers to Hilly in everything. Anxious about appearances and money, she pays little real attention to her small daughter, leaving the child largely to Aibileen.

Appears from the start

The Leefolts' toddler, a chubby, affectionate little girl overlooked by her mother and lovingly raised by Aibileen, who works to make her feel she matters.

First appears in chapter 4

A warm, guileless young woman from a poor rural background, married to a well-off man and shut out by Hilly's circle. Lonely and eager for friendship, she hires Minny in secret and treats her with an unexpected, unguarded kindness.

First appears in chapter 3

The Black maid who raised Skeeter and gave her the affection her own mother withheld. She has left the Phelan household under circumstances no one will explain, and Skeeter is determined to learn what became of her.

First appears in chapter 8

The son of a state senator, set up with Skeeter and courting her. Confident and conventional, he offers Skeeter a path into the respectable married life her mother wants for her, though his views and hers do not always sit easily together.

First appears in chapter 4

Skeeter's mother, an ailing, image-conscious woman who despairs of her unmarried, unladylike daughter and constantly pushes her toward finding a husband and conforming to Jackson's expectations.