The Help Characters

Aibileen's heart is so big, we just might all fit inside it. If you're lucky, she might even write you into her prayers, which are known to be particularly powerful. Her best friend, Minny Jackson,...

Minny and Aibileen are the two primary women representing "the help" – the black women who make life so nice and comfy for their white employers. In many ways, these two women are not alike, and...

Skeeter Phelan is a bundle of contradictions. She's a 23-year-old white woman with a cotton trust fund and a college degree. She lives at home on her family's cotton plantation, Longleaf. And she d...

Hilly is the novel's most dastardly villain. She's married to William Holbrook and has two children, Heather and William, Jr. According to Aibileen, one of her few redeeming qualities is the love a...

Like her best friend Hilly, Elizabeth falls squarely into the villain category, though we admit we find her a little more sympathetic than Hilly. Not that this excuses her, but she seems particular...

Let's start off with a few facts on the girl. Mae Mobley is two years old when The Help opens. She's the daughter of Elizabeth and Raleigh Leefolt. Before the novel ends, she gets a younger brother...

Celia is an endearing character. Although it takes Minny a long time to realize it, Celia is like no white lady she's ever worked for. In a good way. Celia is a sharp contrast to women like Hilly a...

Johnny is a bright light in the novel. Yes, he's part of the society that oppresses people of color, but he seems to subscribe to a very different value system. Minny and Celia (Johnny's wife) both...

Constantine is a beloved and tragic figure. Much of The Help is driven by Skeeter's need to find out why Constantine, the black maid who raised her and was her confidante all the way through Skeete...

Lulabelle is Constantine's daughter and she's about Skeeter's age. While Lulabelle's father was black, Constantine's father was not. As a result, Lulabelle happened to be born with an appearance th...

Robert Brown was friends with Aibileen's son Treelore. He and Aibileen help each other out from time to time. Robert is brutally assaulted by two white men for accidentally using the white bathroom...

Louvenia is Robert Brown's mother and one of the women whose story goes into Help. She works for Lou Anne Templeton and her story is one of the most positive of the bunch. In Help, she describes Lo...

Yule May is a college-educated woman. She's also Hilly Holbrook's maid. When Yule May is short $75 – the difference between sending both her twins sons to college and sending only one – Hilly r...

Miss Fredericks is Elizabeth Leefolt's mother. We don't get to know her well, but it's clear she's pretty awful to both her daughter and her granddaughter. As will come as no surprise, she's also n...

Mister Golden is the editor of the Jackson Journal. He gives Skeeter her first job, as writer of the Miss Myrna advice column. Before Skeeter moves to New York City, she reveals to Mister Golden th...

Leroy is Minny's husband. He physically abuses her on a regular basis, and tries to kill her at the end of the novel when he finds out he lost his job because of his wife. Leroy is partially based...

Reverend Johnson is the Reverend at Aibileen and Minny's church. He plays a big role in maintaining the support system the church provides to the black community in Jackson. He sanctions and honors...

Charlotte is Skeeter's mother and another ambiguous character. Like Skeeter, Charlotte actually goes through some big changes over the course of the novel. As she battles stomach cancer with sheer...

Skeeter's father believes in racial equality and is not afraid to tell it to the likes of Senator Whitworth or anybody else. Ironically, his family's money was made on the backs of slaves. Black pe...

Elaine Stein is the literary agent who publishes The Help and who connects Skeeter with a job in the city. She's definitely one of the good guys.

Treelore is Aibileen's son who died a little over two years before the novel opens. He was only 24 years old at that time. The way Treelore died is important. Aibileen remembers,One night he workin...

Miss Walter or Miss Walters (depending on who's talking about her) is Hilly's mother. She's an ambiguous character. She seems at once insane, senile, victim, victimizer, and rebel. She definitely h...

Stuart is Skeeter's love interest. He's not a terrible guy, just a spineless one. His father's position as senator depends on Stuart not involving himself in any way in the civil rights struggle. Y...