Miss Skeeter retaliates against Miss Hilly's racism by changing a word in her initiative against blacks sharing toilets with whites to "commode". This results in a number of toilets being placed on Miss Hilly's yard and embarrasses her extremely. This incident will ultimately ruin Miss Skeeter and Miss Hilly's relationship for the entirety of the novel. Miss Hilly's influence will make Skeeter loss her place in Bridge Club and loss a majority of her other friends. Not only that, but Elaine Stein, the editor of the paper, moved Skeeter's date up!
Minny is coming to accept Miss Celia and is especially shocked when Celia willingly beats up a white man in order to save her. Miss Celia at this time tries to re-friend Miss Hilly and her gang at goes to the League Benefit with Mr. Johnny(wearing a very revealing and flashy dress, I might add). During the Benefit, Celia gets dead drunk and tries to talk to Hilly, but ends up tearing Hilly's dress. This infuriates Hilly and she goes on ignore Celia's existence. When Miss Hilly wins one of Minny's chocolate pies and Celia goes to congratulate her, Hilly gets very angry and accuses Celia of giving her that pie on purpose in order to sabotage her(Minny gave Miss Hilly a chocolate pie in the beginning of the book and did something awful with it. And it was also Miss Hilly's mother who actually won her the pie). Hilly's accusation upsets Miss Celia to the point that she vomits all over the floor. Many days later, while Celia lays in the bed upset from the benefit, Minny explains that she gave Miss Hilly a chocolate pie with shit in it and that Miss Hilly thought that Celia must of known. Celia is shocked, and states, "'Thank you. For...telling me that.'" (Stockett 400) After that, Celia no longer tries to impress Hilly and goes on living happy with Johnny.
It is actually the fact that Hilly ate Minny's Terrible Awful pie that serves as protection for the maids from the wrath of their white employers, if they were find out that the book is about Jackson, Mississippi. They knew if Hilly read the book and found out that they put that bit of information in there she would make sure people thought that it wasn't about Jackson.
By the time the novel is finished and all the maid stories have been finished, Skeeter sends in her book to Elaine Stein to see if it will get published. Lucky for them it does, and it is sent out to many libraries in the states. At first the book does not sell well, but after being discussed on a TV show and the host states that the novel might actually take place in Jackson, the novel becomes extremely popular. This scares the maids because it has only been a short amount of time and everyone has already figured out it is about Jackson, and they will eventually figure out which maids are involved.
Hilly goes off swearing that the book is about Jackson until she reads the finally pages of the book and realizes what they put in about her. From this point on she starts telling people that it isn't about Jackson, but this doesn't end her want of revenge. Some maids suffer the consequences of helping with Miss Skeeters book, but a majority of the maids are not harmed. Hilly goes up to Skeeter's house and accuses her of writing the book and states that she is going to tell Skeeter's mother. But since Mrs. Phelan had been struggling with cancer, she couldn't care less about what Hilly had to say. But even though Hilly didn't get the chance to complain to Skeeter's mother, she states that she not only knows that Minny was involved but also knows that Aibileen was involved in the book because she mistakenly included the L-shaped mark on Miss Leefolt's table in her stories.
Miss Skeeter is also offered work in New York to be an editor, but isn't sure if she should take the job because of how bad it has gotten in Jackson because of her book. But Minny and Aibileen insist that she take it, and she ends up heading to New York by the end of the book.
Hilly manages to get Minny's husband, Leroy, fired from his job and he comes home so angry that he gets her and the kids out of the house. Minny knows that he was mad enough to kill, so she takes her kids and calls Aibileen. She tells Aibileen what has happened, and Aibileen convinces her that she need to leave Leroy because he is no good and beats on her, and all the love in the world isn't worth that. Minny finally gets the courage to leave her husband and pursue a better life.
Aibileen goes to her job at Miss Leefolt's house only to see that Hilly is also there. Miss Hilly then accuses Aibileen of stealing her silverware and convinces Miss Leefolt to fire her. Aibileen then says her good bye to Baby Girl, and tells her to remember everything she taught her, "you is kind, you is smart, you is important" (Stockett 521) and hugs Mae. Aibileen then leaves the Leefolt house wondering what she is now going to do with her life since she is jobless, and the job as Miss Myrna that Skeeter got her isn't enough to live off of. And then she realizes that even though she is older, her life isn't close to over and that she is going to start anew, perhaps write a book about her life and the things she's gone through. The book ends with Aibileen realizing that she hasn't "finished everything new" (Stockett 522).
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