I am one hundred pages into The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and of course I love it.
The local color in this novel is amazing. From Crisco to typewriters to the use of "y'all," Kathryn Stockett does a great job of keeping the characters as realistic as possible. Most importantly, the dialect of the characters is believable. The deep southern accents of Miss Hilly Holbrook, Skeeter, and Elizabeth Leefolt practically leap off the page. Also, Kathryn Stockett differentiates the speech of the "colored" people with the speech of the "white" people. Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, two black maids, have noticeably different speech than Hilly Holbrook and Skeeter. Most likely this is because of different educations of black and white children.
The novel's mood is very serious because its central theme is the evils of racism. However, Kathryn Stockett mixes in humor to make the novel popular to the masses. Minny Jackson's "sassy mouth" is the novel's main source of comic relief. Her blunt comments are full of sassy attitude that make the reader laugh out loud. My favorite "Minny moment" is when she tells Celia Foote that it is a bad idea to keep her a secret from Celia's husband because one day he will come home to find a strange colored women in his home and shoot her with a pistol. Kathryn Stockett phrased it much more eloquently than I just did. Nonetheless, it was hilarious.
I hope "y'all" have a great Labor Day weekend!
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