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

Sentimental vs. Realistic Techniques: Modern African-American Questions Addressed in Contemporary and 19th Century American Fiction Despite critical caveats about literary quality, the use of sentimental techniques in novels that attempt to precipitate social change are ultimately more persuasive than the use of modernist techniques in similarly motivated social activist novels. Therefore, sentimental strategies that encourage readers to identify with idealized characters and familiar, even formulaic plots allow sentimental novels to act

Underground Railroad was the single most important nonviolent political protest movement in nineteenth century America. Slave rebellions did help to rally the cause for self-empowerment and abolition, but the Underground Railroad led to meaningful, tangible results. The descendants of former slaves who made it to Canada have shaped the fabric of that nation, while the descendants of the former slaves to achieved liberty in their lifetime and lived to tell

As Beauvoir said, these plays tend to deal with restoring a sense of value and choice to a world that has been largely stripped of these features by modern critical, literary, and dramatic trends. Character is created with a greater sense of agency in these plays, and identity -- especially feminine identity -- ironically emerges as more of an actively created and self-determined construct through its interactions within and

Representations of Women The concept of slavery in America has engendered a great deal of scholarship. During the four decades following reconstruction, despite the hopes of the liberals in the North, the position of the Negro in America declined. After President Lincoln's assassination and the resulting malaise and economic awakening of war costs, much of the political and social control in the South was returned to the white supremacists. Blacks were

black women contribute to the early abolitionist movement? What types of restrictions did women (both white and black) face in American society at this point? Why did more people at this point accept the idea of freeing blacks than giving women equal rights and opportunity? American women, black and white, were prohibited from voting in both the antebellum Northern and Southern states. Yet African-American women still played a prominent role