It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears" (Douglass 15).
Douglass, unlike Uncle Tom or even Eliza, cannot help but wish to be free, because, he says, it is an integral part of his humanity. But in Stowe's novel, this urge for freedom is not present in the hearts of Uncle Tom, or in most of the African-American characters. They manifest a hunger for God, and God is shown to frown upon the splitting of families. But the fact that so many slaves risked life and limb to be free, and did not show any sign of the feelings of 'owing' their masters portrayed in the novel, demonstrates how even the author who 'started the war' was limited in her perspective of the realities of black life and black suffering: for accounts of slavery, readers must turn to historical accounts of those individuals who actual lived within the horrifying grip of the institution.
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. University of Virginia e-text.
"The history." Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site. December 2, 2010
http://www.uncletomscabin.org/history.htm
"Josiah Henson." Social Studies for Kids. December 2, 2010
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/josiahhenson.htm
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. University of Virginia e-text.
December 2, 2010. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/StoCabi.html
Tompkins, Jane. "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History."
In Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860. New York:
Oxford UP, 1985. Pp. 122-146. Available December 2, 2010 at http://web.princeton.edu/sites/english/NEH/TOMPKINS.htm
Vollaro, Daniel R. "Lincoln, Stowe, and the 'Little Woman/Great War' Story: The Making, and Breaking, of a Great American Anecdote." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association.
30.1 (2009): 1-30. December 2, 2010
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/30.1/vollaro.html
Uncle Tom's Cabin -- Character Analysis Eva St. Claire, also known as Little Eva, is an important character in Uncle Tom's Cabin. She enters the life of Uncle Tom, the main character who is a slave, when he saves her from drowning in the Mississippi River. Eva convinces her father to buy Tom and he heads back to the St. Claire plantation, where holds the role of head coachman. Eva is
Yet, as Hendrick writes, Harriet also transformed those feelings into an engine of social change; "pursuing the Calvinist injunction to 'improve the affliction' and reap 'the peaceable fruits of righteousness' in the wake of" her son Charley's death, and "stirred up the nation to an awareness of its sin." Harriet wrote to her brother Henry, "You see...how this subject has laid hold of me...The poor slave on whom the
Stowe (2005) decided to change all of that. Stowe (2005) shows what appears to be romantic racialism in that all black people are portrayed as docile, simple, childlike, and very Christian. On the other hand, anyone who is mixed race is not like that at all. He or she is very intelligent, but also very discontented with the position that he or she has in slavery, allegedly because of the
Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe and "Sociology of the South," and "Cannibals All" by Charles Fitzhugh. Specifically it will contrast and compare the two authors' feelings, beliefs, and attitudes regarding the role of the master in the society of slavery. Is the master a fatherly figure or only there to keep the slaves in line? It will also look at the role of the overseer. Were overseers
Whether a character is imprisoned by his own inability to shake loose from discomfort, or enslaved through none of his own doing, the universal human sentiment is to set the character free. Meanwhile I disagree with Hochman when she writes that the book's "direct attack on the peculiar institution subverted its claim to timelessness" and adds that because it "critiqued a social evil in a particular historical period" it failed
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Fiction as a Catalyst for Fact The Origins of a Living Document Stage Night North and South Polarized: Critics Respond The Abolitionist Debates The Tom Caricature The Greatest Impact The Origins of a Living Document In her own words, Harriet Beecher Stowe was compelled to pen Uncle Tom's Cabin "....because as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed and broken-hearted with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now