The Help is a story told alternately by Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter. Let’s consider that each one of them has a problem to solve. If we add Hilly Holbrook to the list, we have four. Of course, the main problem overall is the racial divide in the American Deep South in the early 1960s. This is a challenge that can be only chiseled away a bit by the characters in this book.

Minny loses her job at the Holbrook house and has to find another one. She gets hired by Celia Rae Foote. The problem is that Miss Celia is an unusual person and a newcomer to Jackson and its society. She doesn’t know how to work with a maid or how to manage a household. Can Minny tolerate working under such conditions? Yes, she can. She and Celia seem to come to an understanding, once Minny takes care of her during a miscarriage. They are on their way to almost becoming friends. By the end of the book, Johnny and Celia Foote offer Minny the job for life.

Skeeter wants to be a writer – specifically a journalist. So far, she’s landed the small job of compiling the household hints column for the local newspaper. But she wants something bigger. Inspired by something Aibileen said about her son Treelore, Skeeter gets the idea of compiling a book of black maids’ stories. The problem is that she doesn’t have easy access to the women; and in fact, she could get into trouble just going to Aibileen’s house. Can she successfully get the maids to confide in her about what they experience in the white households? Yes, she can. Once Yule May is arrested for stealing, the maids are all ready to share their stories. By the end of The Help, the book that Skeeter has gotten published on the maids’ behalf has been published and is inviting discussion and a bit of outrage. Skeeter herself lands a job with the publisher in New York.

Hilly Holbrook’s situation is that the southern racial divide isn’t wide enough for her. She writes a Home Help Sanitation Initiative that would encourage the creation of a law that every house should have a separate bathroom for black help. The problem is that Skeeter keeps avoiding the issue and keeps refraining from publishing the initiative in the Junior League newsletter. And when she finally does put it in, she “accidentally” switches some words around so that people bring toilets to Hilly’s front yard, instead of coats for the clothing drive. Hilly becomes the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. Can she turn this ship around? Not entirely, no. She will not be able to resolve her problem until she comes to the realization that diversity is good and that people are all the same, regardless of race. This transformation will not happen by the end of the book – if it should happen at all.

Aibileen loses her only son, Treelore, a smart young man who wanted to be a writer. She mourns his loss deeply. At the same time, she admits that “a bitter seed” has been planted inside her because of the circumstances of Treelore’s death. She’s a religious woman who is devoted to her friends and her church. She writes on pages of her prayer book every night. The problem is that she doesn’t want to be bitter; she doesn’t want to live in a community of people who cannot trust one another or who do violence to one another. Can she crack open her bitter seed? Yes, she can. Skeeter helps her through this invisible situation when she asks first for Aibileen’s help with the household hint questions, and then with the book about the black maids. Eventually Aibileen can see how the writing will help bring some resolution to the situation, and will help her feel better about herself. By the end of the book, she has lost her job at the Leefolt house. But she has taken over the newspaper column from Skeeter and is convincing herself that she can write even more than household hints. She appears to be the heroine of The Help.