Journal Two Aibileen Clark

Character Name : Aibileen Clark

Description (brief), relation to protagonist: Aibileen is the protagonist of the story.  When The Help begins in August 1962, Aibileen, narrator of eleven chapters of The Help, is 53 years old. She's a black woman who has been taking care of "white babies" and "cooking and cleaning" for white families since she was a teen.  Aibileen has raised or helped raise seventeen white babies in her lifetime but her own son was killed in a factory accident. The eighteenth one, Mae Mobley Leefolt, who has just turned two years old when the novel opens, is Aibileen's "special baby".  . Aibileen agrees to help Skeeter write her newspaper column, but the interviews soon become focused on the life of a maid in Jackson Mississippi.

What they say (key dialogue): "You a smart girl. You a kind girl.  You is important." pg.111 Aibileen tries to give Mae Mobley positive self-image in spite of the way her mother treats her.  She hopes that in doing so Mae Mobley will grow up to not have negative feelings towards black people because of the relationship she has with Aibileen.

"Stop that moment from coming – and it come in every child's life – when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites".  This demonstrates Aibileen’s fear of what will become of Mae Mobley when she grows older, as she’s seen happen with every other white child she’s raised.

“You see her in the Jitney 14 grocery, you never think she go and leave her baby crying in her crib like that.  But the help always know.” Pg. 5

“Three years ago today, Treelore died.  But by Miss Leefolt’s book it’s still floor cleaning day.”  Pg. 114.  This demonstrates the relationship between a black maid and her white employer, they are not treated as humans with emotions, simply placed on the planet to serve the needs of the white families

What they do (key actions): At one point in the novel, in fear of Mae Mobley growing up and having the same thoughts towards black people as her mother, Aibileen decides to secretly start to instill morals and ideals into her through the stories she tells. 

"One day, a wise Martian come down to Earth to teach us people a thing or two."

"What's his name?"

"Martian Luther King. […] He a real nice Martian, Mister King. […] but sometime, people looked at him funny and sometime, well, he downright mean."

"Why Aibee? Why was they so mean to him?"

"Cause he was green." Pg.349

Overall impressions of how they help develop the THEME(s): Aibileen helps develop the themes of the novel because by having part of the novel be narrated from her perspective, the readers are shown the inside look at the racism, hardships and cruelties that come with being a black maid in a white household in Jackson, Mississippi.  Aibileen’s relationships with her fellow maids, the white ladies she tends to, and eventually Ms. Skeeter who she befriends, is very revealing of the themes of the novel.  The distinct social rules and differences for each aspect of her life demonstrate greatly the theme of social lines because of race. Also, Aibileen as a character goes through great development in the novel as she deals with creating the book with Ms. Skeeter.  At first she remains very skeptical and nervous, however as she becomes more comfortable, she begins to see that the lines that appear to be between black and white people, don’t actually exist and that hopefully she can have a part in changing that for the better.