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Mark Civil War’s 150th Anniversary
By Reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’
By Barbara Murphy
Contributing Writer
If you don’t do anything else to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, read the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
When you and I were growing up, the book was out of fashion. We were encouraged to read other Victorian writers especially Charles Dickens, but not Harriet Beecher Stowe even though she wrote as powerfully as Dickens — in some ways even more so — and her masterpiece, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” as Abraham Lincoln noted, was a major factor in starting the Civil War.
President Lincoln was right because it was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that opened the eyes of middle class northern whites to the horrors of slavery and as a result the abolition movement really took off.
For reasons which historians and literary scholars need to explore, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was ridiculed rather than acclaimed in the 20th century. The slave-mother Eliza bravely fleeing to freedom with her child across the ice-choked Ohio River was turned into a figure of low comedy on the Vaudeville stage; the name of the murderous slave owner, Simon Legree, was transformed into a silly label for a boss who was merely overbearing.
And Uncle Tom himself, a hero and martyr, was ridiculed as a fawning sycophant. To call an African American an “uncle Tom” was to insult his manhood.
Because the book was so universally scorned, I did not read it until two weeks ago after I heard an historical re-enactor, whose opinion demanded my respect, say that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was “a great book that has been vastly underrated.”
So it was that in my 80th year, I finally read the book that electrified the country when it was first published and electrified me when I at last read it.
No American should go to his or her grave without reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It is awesome in its devastating portrayal of slavery and for its equally devastating portrayal of the moral depravity of slave owners and of people who proclaimed the evils of slavery but did nothing to end it.
There is an unforgettable scene in the book involving Augustine St. Clare, a guilt-ridden slave owner; his cousin, Ophelia, an abolitionist New Englander who is visiting the St. Clare plantation in Louisiana; and a little slave girl named Topsy.
Cousin Ophelia endlessly lectures Augustine on the evils of slavery. He agrees with her, but always comes up with reasons why he can’t free his own slaves. Then one day, Augustine presents Ophelia with Topsy, a mischievous irrepressible slave child who Augustine has purchased so that Ophelia can educate and Christianize her. It’s a challenge meant to expose Ophelia’s hypocrisy on the racial issue of slavery, and it does.
Confronted with the unwashed child, clothed in rags, Ophelia cries out “Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?” Ophelia declares, “I don’t what her!” Mrs. Stowe describes Ophelia’s approaching Topsy “very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black spider....”
However, when Ophelia saw on Topsy’s backs and shoulders “great welts and callous spots,” Ophelia’s “heart became pitiful within her.” She eventually came to love Topsy like a daughter.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is rich in memorable scenes and memorable characters — like the slave trader Haley who declares religion a good thing and vows to take it up after he has made all the money he needs from slave trading; little Eva, Augustine’s angelic daughter who attaches herself to Uncle Tom and breaks his heart and everyone else’s when she dies of tuberculosis; Augustine’s evil wife, Marie; and the Shelbys, Tom’s original owners.
But, of course, it is Uncle Tom himself (like many slaves he was never assigned a last name) who is the main character. He is a man of unswerving steadfastness, intelligence and Christian faith. When Mr. Shelby sells Tom to pay off some ill-gotten debts, Tom accepts his terrible fate so that the rest of the slaves on the plantation will not be sold. Tom is considered a prize and brings a high price on the slave market. Mrs. Shelby is bereft at losing Tom and vows somehow to raise the money to buy him back. Her son George eventually has the resources to do this but he is just hours too late.
Refusing to whip other slaves at the command of his third owner, Simon Legree, Tom himself is beaten to death. He dies slowly and in agony with a vision of the Crucified Christ before his eyes.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was both a fervent abolitionist and a fervent Christian. She proclaimed that slavery and Christianity were incompatible.
In exposing the hideous reality of slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” focuses on its cruelest aspect — the separation of families. In scene after scene, children are torn from their mothers’ arms and sold on the slave market never to be seen by their families again. Some of the slave mothers lose their minds, others take their own lives.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is ultimately a story of redemption — redemption through unspeakable suffering and the death of a great beloved man. And I found it a page turner.
(Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in 1851-1852 and it has never been out of print. It is available at libraries and all book stores.)
By Reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’
By Barbara Murphy
Contributing Writer
If you don’t do anything else to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, read the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
When you and I were growing up, the book was out of fashion. We were encouraged to read other Victorian writers especially Charles Dickens, but not Harriet Beecher Stowe even though she wrote as powerfully as Dickens — in some ways even more so — and her masterpiece, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” as Abraham Lincoln noted, was a major factor in starting the Civil War.
President Lincoln was right because it was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that opened the eyes of middle class northern whites to the horrors of slavery and as a result the abolition movement really took off.
For reasons which historians and literary scholars need to explore, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was ridiculed rather than acclaimed in the 20th century. The slave-mother Eliza bravely fleeing to freedom with her child across the ice-choked Ohio River was turned into a figure of low comedy on the Vaudeville stage; the name of the murderous slave owner, Simon Legree, was transformed into a silly label for a boss who was merely overbearing.
And Uncle Tom himself, a hero and martyr, was ridiculed as a fawning sycophant. To call an African American an “uncle Tom” was to insult his manhood.
Because the book was so universally scorned, I did not read it until two weeks ago after I heard an historical re-enactor, whose opinion demanded my respect, say that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was “a great book that has been vastly underrated.”
So it was that in my 80th year, I finally read the book that electrified the country when it was first published and electrified me when I at last read it.
No American should go to his or her grave without reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It is awesome in its devastating portrayal of slavery and for its equally devastating portrayal of the moral depravity of slave owners and of people who proclaimed the evils of slavery but did nothing to end it.
There is an unforgettable scene in the book involving Augustine St. Clare, a guilt-ridden slave owner; his cousin, Ophelia, an abolitionist New Englander who is visiting the St. Clare plantation in Louisiana; and a little slave girl named Topsy.
Cousin Ophelia endlessly lectures Augustine on the evils of slavery. He agrees with her, but always comes up with reasons why he can’t free his own slaves. Then one day, Augustine presents Ophelia with Topsy, a mischievous irrepressible slave child who Augustine has purchased so that Ophelia can educate and Christianize her. It’s a challenge meant to expose Ophelia’s hypocrisy on the racial issue of slavery, and it does.
Confronted with the unwashed child, clothed in rags, Ophelia cries out “Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?” Ophelia declares, “I don’t what her!” Mrs. Stowe describes Ophelia’s approaching Topsy “very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black spider....”
However, when Ophelia saw on Topsy’s backs and shoulders “great welts and callous spots,” Ophelia’s “heart became pitiful within her.” She eventually came to love Topsy like a daughter.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is rich in memorable scenes and memorable characters — like the slave trader Haley who declares religion a good thing and vows to take it up after he has made all the money he needs from slave trading; little Eva, Augustine’s angelic daughter who attaches herself to Uncle Tom and breaks his heart and everyone else’s when she dies of tuberculosis; Augustine’s evil wife, Marie; and the Shelbys, Tom’s original owners.
But, of course, it is Uncle Tom himself (like many slaves he was never assigned a last name) who is the main character. He is a man of unswerving steadfastness, intelligence and Christian faith. When Mr. Shelby sells Tom to pay off some ill-gotten debts, Tom accepts his terrible fate so that the rest of the slaves on the plantation will not be sold. Tom is considered a prize and brings a high price on the slave market. Mrs. Shelby is bereft at losing Tom and vows somehow to raise the money to buy him back. Her son George eventually has the resources to do this but he is just hours too late.
Refusing to whip other slaves at the command of his third owner, Simon Legree, Tom himself is beaten to death. He dies slowly and in agony with a vision of the Crucified Christ before his eyes.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was both a fervent abolitionist and a fervent Christian. She proclaimed that slavery and Christianity were incompatible.
In exposing the hideous reality of slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” focuses on its cruelest aspect — the separation of families. In scene after scene, children are torn from their mothers’ arms and sold on the slave market never to be seen by their families again. Some of the slave mothers lose their minds, others take their own lives.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is ultimately a story of redemption — redemption through unspeakable suffering and the death of a great beloved man. And I found it a page turner.
(Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in 1851-1852 and it has never been out of print. It is available at libraries and all book stores.)