Violence Quotes in The Help

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

And my cousin Shinelle in Cauter County? They burn up her car cause she went down to the voting station. (7.156)

Black men have had the legal right to vote since the 1870s and black women since the 1920s. In the 1960s, when the novel takes place, violence is used to stop black voters from exercising this right.

Quote #5

No, white womans like to keep they hands clean. They got a shiny little set a tools they use, sharp as witches fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gone take they time with them. (14.63)

Aibileen and some of the other women in the novel express the sentiment that a white woman's way of getting even is as bad or worse as a white man's.

Quote #6

She don't know about them sharp, shiny utensils a white lady use. About that knock on the door, late at night. That there are white men out there hungry to hear about a colored person crossing whites, ready with wooden bats, matchsticks. Any little thing'll do. (14.113)

Here, Aibileen is worried that Skeeter doesn't know how much danger she's in or how much danger she might be putting Aibileen and her friends in, after she decorates Hilly's yard with used toilets.