Aibileen Clark

Aibileen Clark is the secondary protagonist in The Help. She is portrayed by Viola Davis.

Aibileen is a wise but reserved middle-aged black maid who takes pride in knowing that she has helped raise seventeen white children in her lifetime. Aibileen cares the most about two people in this world: her best friend Minny Jackson and Mae Mobley Leefolt, the white girl she raises over the course of movie.

As the movie's moral compass, Aibileen is a warm, compassionate woman who bears racial oppression with a quiet resilience. Aibileen has the uncanny ability to see the good in any person, but the death of her son Treelore causes a “bitter seed” to grow inside her that makes her less tolerant of racist housewives like her employer Elizabeth Leefolt and Elizabeth's friend Hilly Holbrook.

This bitterness prompts her to help Skeeter Phelan reveal the truth about how these women treat their maids. Her moral principles and desire to hold Jackson accountable for its oppression of black domestic workers then gives her the strength to continue working on the project, despite the dangers threatening her.

Personality
Aibileen is a kind woman and very faithful to God, yet can be very shy when taken out of her comfort zone. Her timidity is shown when she first talks with Miss Skeeter, and is afraid to be too open with her. She stands at the kitchen sink and never stops working.

After losing her son in an accident, a “bitter seed” was planted inside of Abilene. Her whole world went black that day, and after her son’s death she just didn’t feel as accepting anymore. This seed in her comes from her occasional distaste for whites, mostly because when her son was severely injured at work, his fellow white coworkers did very little to help him; resulting in his death. Her bitterness reappears throughout the movie, specifically when Mrs. Leefolt claims that blacks were dirty.

But despite that seed, Aibileen manages to be sweet to little Mae Mobley. She gives Mae Mobley the love and affection that her mother won’t give her because she isn’t pretty enough. Aibileen makes sure to tell Mae Mobley that she is special in her own way. She constantly tells Mae Mobley to remember “you is kind, you is smart, you is important”.

Yet that bitter seed gradually disappears as Aibileen grows as a character. She learns to see things past the negative and open her eyes to the hopeful side of things, and by the end of the movie, Aibileen realizes that “maybe [she] will become the writer…”

Physical Appearance
Aibileen has dark skin and brown eyes with black curly hair.

Role in Film
Aibileen is playing a banjo at a campfire with Elizabeth, Hilly, and Raleigh. As she plays, one of the strings on the banjo breaks and Elizabeth, Hilly, and Raleigh laugh, making Aibileen want to kill them out of rage. Aibileen beheads Elizabeth, and her head falls into the fire. Aibileen then brutally slices Hilly vertically in half, and decapitates Raleigh and violently beats his body to pieces with the banjo. After smashing everyone to bits with the instrument, Aibileen laughs maniacally. However, Raleigh's disembodied head, somehow still alive, bites Aibileen foot. Aibileen screaming in pain. Raleigh soon dies by massive blood loss.