Minny Jackson: Character Connection

We all have characters we love. Let’s spotlight these fantastic creations! Whether you want to be friends with them or you have a full-blown crush on them, you know you love them and want everyone else to love them too!

Most of you will probably post about how much you love each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write a love letter to Captain Wentworth. Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Draw a picture of yourself in Jamie’s arms. The possibilities are endless.

Be sure to post the book’s title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.

Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.

Kathrynn Stockett’s bestselling book, The Help is a bestseller for a reason. Tackling the issue of race in 1960s Mississippi, it’s an important book. But it wouldn’t be quite so special without the three characters at the heart of the story. I loved them all, but Minny is a standout.

Minny is a helluva fine cook, yet she has trouble keeping a job. She’s had something like 19 jobs in as many years. But she just can’t keep her mouth shut. If she sees something going on that she doesn’t like, or if her employers say something that offends her, she lets everyone know it. This is still the Jim Crow South. A black woman has to bury her real feelings way down deep and meekly accept whatever is dished out if she wants to keep her job. Minny just can’t do it, and you have to admire her for it. One minor character calls her “every Southern white woman’s nightmare,” and that definitely describes Minny!

There’s more to her than the feistiness though. She’s so used to fighting the world that she is completely thrown for a loop when she’s hired by a white woman who seems to see her as a friend. Now Minny’s the one worried about proper behavior. She’s partly afraid that she’s going to get hurt, and she partly just doesn’t trust any white people. Let’s face it–no one’s given her any reason to trust them.

At home, Minny’s slightly different. She works as hard to keep her kids in line as you would expect her to, but her husband is No Good. It kept surprising me that she put up with his crap. I guess she needs his income to keep a roof over everyone’s head.

There’s one thing that happens at the beginning of the book that Minny calls the “Terrible Awful Thing.” The reader doesn’t find out until the end exactly what it is that she did. I was horrified and thrilled all at the same time! Mostly I was cheering for her for striking back!

Dreamworks is filming a movie version to be filmed next year, and Octavia Spencer has signed on to play Minny’s role.  If I’ve seen her in anything, I don’t recall it, but she looks pretty much exactly the way I pictured Minny.

Who did you connect with this week? Write a post and link up! Be sure to visit everyone else’s posts too!