Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.

22-year-old Maria was on her way to becoming a beautician when a family crisis forced her to take a new path, and she now finds herself employed as the maid for the extremely wealthy Ridgeway family. As one of many servants who dote on the demented and dysfunctional family, Maria discovers there's not only a class struggle between the upstairs and the downstairs, but there's an all out war among "The Help."