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Uncle Tom's Cabin and Its Place in Americana
Uncle Tom's Cabin
was published in 1852 and through its popularity, it worked its way
into America's consciousness for eleven years and changed indifferent
people from apathy to passion on the issue of slavery. Consequently,
Abraham Lincoln was able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation on
January 1, 1863. Click to read the Emancipation Proclamation.
Later, in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe, he
said she was " the little lady who made this big war." Many agree with
Abraham Lincoln that Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel paved the way to
freeing the slaves. It revealed new information about slavery and slave
owners that the Americans had not known before. Uncle Tom's Cabin was
an expose of slavery.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book first and foremost because she was a Christian and knew that slavery was
ungodly. She was able to write Uncle Tom's Cabin
because of her deep empathy for the slaves whom she met throughout her
childhood and into her adulthood. She was intrigued by their
biographical stories. She saw them through the eyes of one who also had
suffered. In the plague of 1849 she lost a beloved child. Click on the
website below to read Harriet Beecher Stowe's own words about the loss
of this child and how it inspired her to take up the cause of
anti-slavery:
Harriet
Beecher Stowe's Letter
How
true it is, that through our sufferings, God can work miracles if we
will allow Him. And certainly, Harriet Beecher Stowe was an instrument
of God's will.
Indirectly you know some trivia
about this book because Uncle Tom's wife, Aunt Chloe, who would today
be about 175 years old, may be sitting in your kitchen today. Someone
in advertising, who was familiar with this novel, took the descriptions
of Aunt Chloe's face, clothes and cooking specialty right off Harriet
Beecher Stowe's pages, renamed her "Aunt Jemima" and put her on the
front of a pancake mix where you can find her today. But the face you
see today is not the original lady. The original Aunt Jemima as well as
Mammy (who might be on your video shelf) from the movie, "Gone with the
Wind" owe their existence to the head cook in the main house of the
Shelby plantation, who was famous for her dishes including hot cakes,
which we know today as pancakes. Click on the link below: to see the
face of both Aunt Chloe and the original Aunt Jemima, mirrored in the
actress Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy in "Gone with the Wind".
Hattie
McDaniel
Take time to read and look at all the pictures of Hattie McDaniel in
this site. In recent years, Aunt Jemima has changed, just as her
fictional descendants might have changed. Click below to see and read
about the new Aunt Jemima.
Aunt
Jemima
Let's discuss the style of Stowe's writing. It is a style that went out of fashion soon after she wrote
Uncle Tom's Cabin,
but it is a style that you will enjoy. She overwrites, taking 100 words
where 10 would do if she were writing like Ernest Hemingway, for
example. Some of her sentences are 60 words long. It stretches your
reading ability. Her oratorical prose was popular in her day as it
reflected the sermons in the 1850s which believed that language should
arouse feelings and ideas. She wanted to propel her readers into action
with vivid pictures and situations. Still today these pictures and
situations will impact you. Enjoy her "sketches," as she named them, as
they are quite poignant. It can certainly be said that God used her
expressive power and genius as a vehicle to change the world.
It should be stressed that Stowe was a brilliant writer of dialogue.
She predates Mark Twain's use of dialect and dialogue by thirty years.
Do not be discouraged if you can not interpret every word of the
dialects. They are difficult so don't worry about word for word
translation. Go for comprehending the gist of it.
She also had a powerful grasp of literary characters. It is no accident
that four of the characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin have become bywords in
American culture--Little Eva, Uncle Tom, Topsy and Simon Legree. Mrs.
Stowe comes under criticism today for having drawn stereotypic
caricatures. However, those caricatures evolved, particularly in the
entertainment industry, from what were fresh and original characters.
The understanding of Uncle Tom is totally opposite from Harriet Beecher
Stowe' portrayal. Today an "Uncle Tom" is a black person who tells a
white person exactly what he wants to hear, be it true or not. As you
read about Uncle Tom, evaluate the differences between the derogatory
term 'Uncle Tomming' and the fictional heroic Uncle Tom.
Stowe uses this novel to discuss and dramatize complex political,
Biblical, moral and philosophical issues which at times, gets tedious
for the modern day reader. Quickly reading these sections may help
shorten a very long book. Long as it is, it is a fast moving narrative
with excitement in every chapter. Harriet Beecher Stowe knew she had to
keep her readers involved in order to persuade them to her abolitionist
cause.
Another tip to enjoying this book is to read it aloud. Take any scene,
anywhere, and captivate your audience with Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Because almost each chapter is a "sketch", it will stand on its own as
an excellent short story.
She talks about the curtain rising on her scenes like a curtain rising
on a play or a cloth being drawn away from a painting. Then she
proceeds to describe what is in her sketch or painting which originates
from her mind's eye. She also opens many of her sketches with what I
call a 'roving eye' technique, elaborately describing first the
setting, then the people, and then their attitudes. About 100 years
later this technique was mastered in the art form of the motion
picture. You should be comfortable with this part of her technique
since you've been watching movies all your life.
Click below here to read about the history of this novel and to see
theatrical posters advertising stage productions. We talk of Broadway
shows that run for years on New York City, but no play had a longer
life than Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amazingly, it transcended
generations long after emancipation, which just proves what a good
story it is. In 1910, a 30 minute film was made.
Uncle
Tom's Cabin Onstage
Click
below to see various depictions of Uncle Tom's Cabin on film.
Uncle
Tom's Cabin
on Film
A scene in the Broadway musical, as well as a Hollywood movie called
The King and I,
recreates Eliza running over the ice flows. This movie might be one of
your grandmother's and perhaps even your mother's favorite movies and
it can be rented on video, so it can be one of yours too. Uncle Tom's
Cabin as a piece of Americana never goes entirely away, and now you are
going to carry on that tradition by reading this classic work.
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