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While Jim Crow-era laws enforced racial segregation in the South on a state and local level, the everyday beliefs and social behaviors of Southern whites were just as central to the continued segregation of African-Americans as the actual laws themselves. For example, many white people in the novel believe that black people carry unique diseases that can be transmitted to others by using the same toilet seat. Miss Hilly uses this blatantly racist belief to convince other white women to build separate bathrooms for their black maids. In this way, segregated bathrooms represent the private beliefs and social practices that reinforce and expand institutional segregationist laws. Some other examples of these beliefs include the taboo in white communities against sitting at the same table with black people or sharing the same utensils. Over the course of the novel, Skeeter realizes that to overcome racism in the South, people must overturn the Jim Crows laws while also working to undo the private racist beliefs and social practices that would perpetuate racism and segregation even if the laws no longer existed. Since bathrooms are one of the most private spaces in the home, which is already a private space, overcoming segregation there represents overcoming a particularly challenging hurdle on the path towards equal rights.
Bathrooms Quotes in The Help
The The Help quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bathrooms. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.
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Chapter 2
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I put the iron down real slow, feel that bitter seed grow in my chest, the one planted after Treelore died. My face goes hot, my tongue twitchy. I don’t know what to say to her. All I know is, I ain’t saying it. And I know she ain’t saying what she want a say either and it’s a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation.
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Chapter 4
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She’s got so many azalea bushes, her yard’s going to look like Gone With the Wind come spring. I don’t like azaleas and I sure didn’t like that movie, the way they made slavery look like a big happy tea party. If I’d played Mammy, I’d of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress.
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Chapter 7
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I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the negro side of town. I want to stop that moment from coming – and it come in every white child's life – when they start to think that colored folks are not as good as whites.
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Chapter 22
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“She needs to learn that she can’t carry on this way. I mean, around us it’s one thing, but around some other people, she’s going to get in big trouble.”
“It’s true. There are some racists in this town,” Miss Leefolt say. Miss Hilly nod her head, “Oh, they’re out there.”
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Get the entire The Help LitChart as a printable PDF.
Bathrooms Symbol Timeline in The Help
The timeline below shows where the symbol Bathrooms appears in The Help. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...If passed, the bill would require every white household in Mississippi to have a separate bathroom for black housekeepers. Miss Hilly claims black people “carry different kinds of disease than we...
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Chapter 2
Two days after the talk about the bathroom, Aibileen arrives at work where Mister Raleigh Leefolt (Miss Leefolt’s husband) is yelling at Miss...
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The next morning, construction at the Leefolt house starts on the separate bathroom in the carport (an outdoor shelter for cars consisting of a roof held up by...
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The bathroom is ready by the next afternoon. Miss Leefolt tells Aibileen, who feels the bitter seed...
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Chapter 4
...jumps out of bed faster than she’s ever done before. Minny hides in the guest bathroom so Johnny doesn’t think that the black stranger in his house is a burglar. Minny...
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Chapter 5
...to Skeeter’s perspective on the day of the bridge game when Hilly brought up the bathroom bill. After the game, Skeeter drives home to her family’s cotton plantation in a fury....
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...son of a state senator. She also tells Skeeter to run an ad for the bathroom bill in the League newsletter. Hilly is president of the newsletter. Looking at the separate...
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Chapter 7
It’s late October and Aibileen finds the bathroom in the carport a cold and isolating place. After witnessing Miss Leefolt berate her daughter...
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When Miss Leefolt comes home, Mae Mobley runs to Aibileen’s bathroom to show her mother her new skill. Horrified, Leefolt slaps Mae Mobley on the leg...
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Chapter 8
...Hilly. When Aibileen had brought them coffee, Hilly asked Aibileen demeaning, rhetorical questions about the bathroom like, “It’s nice to have a place of your own, now isn’t it?” Aibileen agrees,...
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Chapter 9
...only two words: Miss Hilly. Hearing the bitterness in Aibileen’s voice, Skeeter thinks of Hilly’s bathroom bill and all the terrible things Aibileen must have heard her say about black people.
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Chapter 12
...and says without emotion that she’s “real excited.” Before Skeeter leaves, Hilly gives her the bathroom bill ad that she wants Skeeter to run in the next newsletter. The ad says...
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Chapter 13
...that there is no real difference between official laws and Hilly’s racist attitude about separate bathrooms. She steals the book because she can’t check it out without the women working at...
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Chapter 18
...upstairs before Minny can say anything. When Minny goes to clean the upstairs bedroom, the bathroom door is closed. Minny tells Celia through the door that she’s going to clean the...
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Chapter 21
At a League meeting, Hilly tells Skeeter she wants the ad about her bathroom initiative in this week’s journal or else she’ll have her fired as editor. Skeeter says...
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Chapter 25
...of being called a liar in front of everyone, Celia vomits and rushes to the bathroom.
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