In an effort to distance herself as far as possible from what she perceives as her mother's shameless life, Helene marries the right ("Wright") man, keeps a perfect house, and worships in the most conservative black church in the Bottom. Much of her energy is spent trying to smother all signs of creativity and spontaneity in her daughter, Nel. Seemingly, Helene is a model mother and citizen.
When a return to New Orleans to see her dying grandmother seems inevitable, Helene has great misgivings about going south. She's keenly aware of the strict rules of segregation, both written and unwritten. Her best protection, she thinks, is an elegant dress, but when distraction leads her, by accident, into a train's Whites Only car, not even her beautiful brown wool dress can save her from being humiliated by the jeers of the white, racist conductor. Later, she is further humiliated: Because there are no toilets for black people on the train, Helene must substitute fields adjacent to train stations for bathrooms and leaves for toilet paper.
Whereas Helene was able to transform herself successfully into a rigid model of religious and moral respectability in Midwestern Ohio, the South slowly strips her of all her protective veneer. This degeneration begins the moment she steps into the train, when the white conductor addresses her as "gal," a demeaning, stereotypical label that negates Helene's personal identity. The word immediately reminds her of her past, of the whorehouse's red shutters, which symbolize her mother's morally disordered life and behind which Helene was born. She is so personally shaken by this memory — "All the old vulnerabilities, all the old fears of being somehow flawed gathered in her stomach . . ." — that she physically trembles.
During the trip south, Nel sees the exterior of her once-powerful mother slowly disintegrate, and she realizes that, underneath, her mother is weak and vulnerable. She vows that she herself will never be reduced to emotional custard. Declaring that she is a separate and wonderful person, Nel resolves to develop her "me-ness," a transformation that will begin to take shape when she becomes friends with an odd, independent-minded girl named Sula Peace.
