Chapters 1–4

Summary: Aibileen, Chapter 1

Aibileen Clark has been working for the Leefolt family as a maid and caretaker for their two-year-old, Mae Mobley, for two years. Mae Mobley is the first child Aibileen has taken care of since her son, Treelore, died. Elizabeth’s friends Skeeter and Hilly, and Hilly’s mother, Miss Walters, arrive for bridge club. Hilly urges her mother to eat, commenting that her maid, Minny, must not be feeding her enough. Aibileen knows this cannot be true as Minny, her best friend, is the best cook in Jackson. After Hilly uses the bathroom, she encourages Elizabeth to build an outdoor bathroom for the help to use. Elizabeth demurs, saying their finances are tight, but Hilly claims it is more sanitary as Black people carry different diseases than white people. Skeeter jokingly suggests Hilly use an outdoor bathroom instead. Hilly cautions Skeeter that the “colored situation” is nothing to joke about. Skeeter later joins Aibileen in the kitchen and asks her if she has ever wished she could change things. Aibileen thinks it is a silly question but tells Skeeter that everything is fine the way it is. 

Summary: Aibileen, Chapter 2

A few days later, Aibileen arrives at work to see a truck outside the Leefolt house. She is surprised to find Elizabeth’s husband Raleigh home, yelling about how they cannot afford to build another bathroom for the maid. Over the next few days, Hilly fires Minny as she is putting Miss Walters in a nursing home, and spreads a rumor that Minny is a thief. Minny tells Aibileen that when Hilly fired her, Minny nearly spat in her face but instead did something worse. That night, while writing in her prayer book, Aibileen adds Skeeter to her list of prayers.

One day, Aibileen answers the Leefolts’ phone. A woman named Celia Foote, who is married to Hilly’s ex-boyfriend, asks to speak to Elizabeth, though Aibileen says she is not home. When Celia mentions she is looking for a maid, Aibileen pretends that Elizabeth told Aibileen to pass on Minny’s information. Elizabeth comes home and tells Aibileen that they have built a bathroom for her in the garage. Acting as though this is a favor for Aibileen, Elizabeth makes clear that Aibileen is only to use the bathroom outside.

Summary: Minny, Chapter 3

Minny goes to Celia Foote’s house, a mansion far out in the country, and is surprised at Celia’s appearance, with heavy makeup and a tight, tacky-looking pantsuit. Celia hasn’t heard the rumors started by Hilly and is glad that Minny wants to take the job. Celia is unsure of how to set the terms of Minny’s work and tells Minny that her husband cannot know they have a maid, as she wants him to think that she can cook and clean by herself. Minny sees this as a deal-breaker, but Celia promises to pay Minny twice what she made at Miss Walters’s house and will tell her husband about Minny by Christmas. While Minny gives Celia a cooking lesson, Celia claims to be the happiest she has ever been, though Minny thinks she does not seem happy. 

Summary: Minny, Chapter 4 

Minny falls into a rhythm working for Celia. She notices Celia does not leave her bedroom much, aside from their cooking lessons and sneaking upstairs for a few minutes each day. One day, Celia points out a mimosa tree in the yard that she wants to cut down. Minny encourages her to do it, though Celia says she needs to stay inside and be still. Minny suggests Celia try making some friends, and Celia says she has called women about the Children’s Benefit, though no one ever calls her back. Minny knows that the other women see Celia as beneath them.

Analysis: Chapters 1–4

The first four chapters, told from the perspectives of two Black maids, Aibileen and Minny, demonstrate the racial divide in the 1960s South. Though white women like Elizabeth Leefolt and Hilly Holbrook rely on their maids for most duties around the house as well as childcare, their prejudice is evident in nearly every conversation they have and action they take. The separate maid’s bathroom serves as an important symbol throughout the novel of how white people, whether they are private citizens or elected government officials, aim to segregate the races. Not only were public bathrooms segregated, but people like Hilly also advocate for segregated bathrooms in private spaces, showing how laws influence personal prejudice, and vice versa. The bathroom is something all human beings have in common—no matter someone’s background, race, social class, or age, everyone has bodily functions and a need for a bathroom. By trying to use even this space as a way to claim that Black people are diseased, Hilly and those like her are attempting to assert that Black people are inherently different from and inferior to white people.

The first four chapters also introduce the rigid social structure of Jackson, Mississippi. While the white women are far more privileged than Aibileen and Minny, seeing their lives through their maids’ eyes shows how constricted they are by social norms. Elizabeth, who is not as financially well-off as her friends, is anxious about making sure she, her family, and her home conform to Hilly’s expectations. Elizabeth does not seem to share Hilly’s racist belief that she could catch a disease from using the same toilet as Aibileen, as she did not take issue with sharing before Hilly brought it up. However, because having a separate bathroom for the help is what Hilly thinks is right, Elizabeth immediately takes on a project her family cannot afford. In contrast to Elizabeth, Celia Foote married into a good deal of money. However, her rural upbringing means she is not aware of many social norms of Jackson’s upper class. Her tight clothing and garish makeup make her as unfashionable as the way she treats Minny as an equal. While both Elizabeth and Celia have more materially than their maids, they both come off as deeply dissatisfied with their lives. Meanwhile, Aibileen and Minny have an honest and uncomplicated friendship as well as support from the rest of their community. This shows that, though people like Elizabeth try to maintain the social structure, it is not serving their best interests.

These chapters show how white women wield their power through what is unsaid. Aibileen notices how Elizabeth never explicitly tells her not to use the bathrooms inside the house but instead frames the outdoor bathroom as a favor. Were Elizabeth to be straightforward with Aibileen, her racism would be blatant. However, by pretending to have Aibileen’s interests in mind rather than her own, Elizabeth keeps the racial divide under the surface. Though Aibileen knows why she is supposed to use the outdoor bathroom, leaving the reason unsaid makes it more difficult to argue that Elizabeth’s actions are based on prejudice. And because Aibileen would lose her job if she were to bring up the reason, she has no choice but to stay quiet. Refusing to allow the label of “racist” or “prejudiced” to be put on their actions allows these women to pretend there is no problem and so nothing to fight back against. This tactic is also shown by Aibileen’s shock when Skeeter asks if she wishes things could change. To hear a white woman acknowledge that anything should be changed is a novelty to Aibileen and one she knows cannot be repeated to Elizabeth.