The Help Hilly Holbrook Character Analysis

The Help: Prompt 2

The Help has a lot of arrogant and selfish people in the book, but villain takes a new term when it comes to Hilly Holbrook. A wealthy socialite like Hilly wants control over the situation to seem like a leader, or someone in power. She is the villain of Jackson, Mississippi because she threatens/blackmails to get what she wants, encourages the need for segregation, and dehumanizes the black community. Hilly is the president of the Junior League and donates to charity only to seem like the perfect Jackson woman.

In the book, Hilly Holbrook is at the top of the social ladder because of her future politician husband, William Holbrook. Another reason Hilly is well respected is due to her passion for blackmailing and threatening people. When Hilly got a new maid, Eula Mae, she was already skeptical as to why she wasn’t asking for much pay. So, Eula asked Mrs. Holbrook for a loan so she could send her sons to college. Of course, Hilly says no, but Eula Mae finds an old ring behind the couch when she was cleaning. She then pawns the ring and collects the money, but Hilly has her arrested. Another instance is when Hilly tells her husband to get Leroy, Minny Jackson’s husband, fired. We later learn that Leroy goes home and tries

Hilly Holbrook dehumanizes the black community by spreading rumors and saying that they carry diseases. The whole reason behind the bill that she was trying to pass was that she thought that black people spread disease through toilet seats, which can only harm white people. One of the charities that Hilly is a part of is The Poor Starving Children of Africa. "You cannot give these tribal people money. There is no Jitney 14 Grocery in the Ogaden Desert. And how would we even know if they're even feeding their kids with it? They're likely to go to the local voodoo tent and get a satanic tattoo with our money” (Stockett 175). Mrs. Holbrook doesn’t realize how wrong she is about African culture and egotistic she