How many maids help skeeter

Now the colored churches are pooling funds to send the two boys to college. Eleven maids come up to Skeeter and tell her that they will help her with the interview project. Skeeter is thankful that this is happening, but heartbroken that it has taken a good woman's imprisonment to make it happen.

During Skeeter's next meeting with Hilly, she can nearly contain her fury at Hilly's version of events; Hilly asserts that black maids often steal family heirlooms so they can sell them to buy liquor pints. Skeeter and Aibileen start interviewing the maids - eleven have agreed to be a part of the project. She hears stories of tenderness: one maid is concerned about what will happen if she dies before her employer, because the woman is so dependent on her.

She also hears stories of horror: one maid's cousin-in-law had her tongue cut out for talking about the KKK. They discuss low pay and hard hours, but also the closeness they feel to some of their charges.

Skeeter assures all of them that their names will be kept completely confidential; she also offers each as much money as she can, using earnings from her Miss Myrna column and the allowance her mother gives her. One maid named Gretchen tells Skeeter that she's just trying to make a dollar off black women's stories, and all the maids secretly hate her. Aibileen tells her to leave. Skeeter's next interview is much calmer: a maid named Callie tells her that her employer wrote her a thank-you letter for all the work Callie had done over the years, which Callie appreciated deeply.

The two sets of parents make conversation; Skeeter's mother mentions that she has heard that the Whitworth's home a historical landmark is the centerpiece of historic tours. The Whitworths uneasily admit that Patricia van Deveder's mother is head of the historical council, so they do not take part in historical tours anymore. The group tours the Whitworth home, which is filled with relics of the antebellum- and Confederate-era south, until Stuart returns.

The group settles down for dinner. Whitworth brings up the Life magazine feature on Carl Roberts, a black man who was lynched for saying negative thing about the white Mississippi governor.

Skeeter's father says he's ashamed of the violence meted out against black men in the south. Whitworth says he might agree with the negative things that Carl Roberts said about the governor. Stuart continues to brood over the prior mention of Patricia van Devender. Whitworth, extremely drunk, pulls Skeeter aside and asks her if his son is doing all right; he was deeply hurt when Patricia van Devender left him. Skeeter realizes she isn't sure how Stuart really is doing and wonders what she really means to him.

She confronts Stuart about what exactly happened between him and Patricia. He confesses that she slept with a Yankee civil rights activist, and that he would not take her back because doing so could jeopardize his father's run for political office. Skeeter asks if he is still in love with Patricia, and Stuart is quiet for a moment before telling her that they should quit things for a while.

Skeeter hides her breakup with Stuart from her parents and focuses on typing up the maid interviews. She notices that her mother seems more and more frail: she has grown thinner, she eats little, and she vomits frequently. Symbols All Symbols.

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During the fifth session, Aibileen reads to Skeeter about the day Treelore died. She reads about how his body was thrown on the back of a pickup by the white foreman and taken to the black hospital. The nurses told Aibileen that the men rolled his body off the truck and then just drove off. The story about Treelore also emphasizes how white men in Jackson put little value on the lives of black men, treating Treelore more like a dying animal than a man.

Active Themes. After a few meetings, Aibileen asks Skeeter to check out some classic works of literature from the white library so that she can improve her own writing. Skeeter agrees, but asks why Aibileen why she waited so long to ask for this.

Their bond of trust continues to develop, giving Aibileen the confidence to ask Skeeter to cross another racial divide: checking out books from the white library. Skeeter finally begins to recognize the many injustices of segregation. Skeeter knows that her mother, an old-fashioned Southern woman, would try to put a stop to her writing if she found out that Skeeter was helping a maid speak out against her white employers. On the morning of the fifth day, Skeeter mails the manuscript to Elaine Stein.

Charlotte would also object to Skeeter writing any book about a controversial subject because, in Jackson society, a woman is not supposed to have strong opinions of her own, especially ones that might make men uncomfortable. Elizabeth announces that she is pregnant and that the baby is due in October. Protect your children. Protect your help.

Ten days later, Elaine Stein gets back to Skeeter , saying she likes the material and that she wants Skeeter to get interviews from twelve more maids. Aibileen and Minny also develop a friendship and understanding with Skeeter that neither believed possible. Along the way, Skeeter learns the truth of what happened to her beloved maid, Constantine. Constantine had given birth, out of wedlock, to Lulabelle who turned out to look white even though both parents were black.

Neither the black nor the white community would accept Lulabelle, so Constantine gave her up for adoption when she was four years old.

When the little girl grew up, she and Constantine were reunited. While Skeeter was away at college, Lulabelle came to visit her mother in Jackson and showed up at a party being held in Skeeter's mother's living room. When Charlotte Phelan discovered who Lulabelle was, she kicked her out and fired Constantine.

Constantine had nowhere else to go, so she moved with her daughter to Chicago and an even worse fate. Skeeter never saw Constantine again. Skeeter's book is set in the fictional town of Niceville and published anonymously. It becomes a national bestseller and, soon, the white women of Jackson begin recognizing themselves in the book's characters.