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Title: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Classic Fiction) by Harriet Beecher Stowe ISBN: 9-6263417-5-0 Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks Ltd. Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 4 List Price(USD): $26.98 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13 (110 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Uncle Tom's Must-Read
Comment: This is one of the greatest literary works that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The many different view points that are brought into action cause the reader to partially understand reasons of how the evil came to be evil, and the deprived came upon their lowly state.
The story begins on a Kentucky plantation, where the owner, Mr.Shelby, has to sell his two more valuable slaves, Uncle Tom and Harry. Harry is five years old and his mother has to save him from his doomed fate. Tom stays to pay for his masters debt. The story follows Uncle Tom's life after his sale, and Harry's mother, Eliza's, new lives after this life-changing event.
The story of Uncle Tom's Cabin is truly remarkable. What makes the story so powerful is that the views presented are the real thoughts and questions once brought up by people of the era. The story includes all aspects of the slave trade. Everything from the trader himself to the feelings of separated families is explained in detail. If you want a non-history book view of what really happened before the Civil War, it is unthinkable to miss Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Determination To Remain Human
Comment: Abraham Lincoln upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe said, "So you're the little lady who started this war." What Lincoln was referring to was Stowe's penning of her book "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the story of slaves owned by the comparatively humane Shelby family who must be sold off after the Shelbys encounter some financial difficulties. For the slaves Tom and Harry this means being sold "down river" as the Shelbys reside in Kentucky. To be sold down river means being sent to the areas of the deep South where slaves were less well cared for on average and survived for shorter periods of time.
Tom does not resist the sale and heads for his new home in Louisiana with the St. Clare family. Harry is a young boy whose mother, Eliza, doesn't want to see him go so she decides to escape with the boy to Canada along the Underground Railroad.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" did more for the awakening of moral outrage against slavery than any other piece of literature or reporting. The book showed the true inhumanity of the system, not only to the slaves, but to the slave owners too. Any system which could so easily provide for the separation of husbands and wives and parents and children was easily recognized as the evil institution that it was.
With "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Stowe created not only a voice against slavery though, but a tale of the lengths to which most people will go to protect what they most care about. The lengths to which Eliza goes to save her son Harry from being sold down river says volumes about human endurance and the humanity of a people who were felt to be incapable of such familial connections.
Rating: 4
Summary: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Comment: Often credited to helping start the American Civil War, Stowe's novel became influential for all Americans, whether willingly or not. She may not have wanted absolute war, but she made it clear that "The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race..." (Stowe xviii). She made a brilliant attempt to fulfill this goal and the result was a novel that changed the course of history.
The actual story is just one way that Stowe created compassion in her audience. The story starts with a gracious slave-owner, Shelby, and how debts have forced this kindhearted man to separate two families, one of them mother and child. The mother, Eliza, and child, Harry, flee to the north were abolitionists help them make their way to Canada and reunite with the husband and father. The escape is dramatic and moving and the people that help the family along the way are appropriately labeled as righteous humans. In contras, Loker, the slave hunter that hindered them, is deemed unethical. The conversion of Loker is a turning point for that part of the story and he is altered into a character favorable to the reader.
As for Tom, he is sent to the St. Clare family where the master is moral man and he has a religious and flawless daughter, Eva. Because of her perfection, Eva cannot see the difference between blacks and whites. Soon afterwards, Tom is sold to a malicious slave owner, Legree. Tom helps two fellow slaves escape but is therefore severely beaten and then dies. In his memory, Shelby's son frees all of his slaves and Tom becomes a martyr. The seemingly real lives of Stowe's characters raise emotions and sway the reader to be sympathetic towards blacks.
An important person who was the prime example to support Stowe's thesis was St. Clare's cousin Ophelia. She is a northerner who hates blacks but is opposed to slavery. She represents the intended audience that Stowe was writing for. What Stowe wants for the North is what happens to Ophelia: through contact with a suffering slave, she overcomes her racism. Ophelia insists that St. Clare legally give her the slave that she grew fond of and states that "'Nobody but God has a right to give her to me; but I can protect her now'" (308).
Uncle Tom's Cabin also happens to be incredibly biased. From cover to cover, there are narrations with reasons and opinions that Stowe created to draw the reader to a certain belief. One speaks of how the pleasant and caring masters in Kentucky were the best a slave could get but even there they were still sold, worked hard, and separated from family. Others told of why the immoral masters were so atrocious. The author described the characters with different types of attitudes based on how she wanted the reader to feel about them. For example, a Quaker named Ruth "...was decidedly a wholesome, wholehearted, chirruping little woman..." and therefore the first impression of this woman was positive (133). This worked for Stowe because the Quakers were placed into an optimistic atmosphere. On the other hand, the people that were created to be the "enemy" were portrayed as abhorrent creatures who weren't truly gentlemen. For instance, Tom's master Legree was said to be "...like some ferocious beast, that plays with its victim before he devours it, he kept back his strong impulse to proceed to immediate violence..." (355).
Religion played an enormous part in story as well. The characters that the reader would grow fond of were tremendously religious. For example, Tom "...would climb to a nook... and busy himself in studying over his Bible..." (141). In addition, Eva is perfect and extremely pious. The devout characters are also the ones opposed to slavery. The more religious a person grows, the more moral they become. For example, Loker is healed by Quakers and consequently found religion with them. Through this he is transformed into a man who is completely concerned with the well-being of blacks. In opposition, Legree was the true evil of the story and he is also the opposite of any religious person, especially Tom and Eva. At one point, Tom hears a voice that seems to come from the religious scroll that tells him not to be afraid. On the other hand, "...Simon Legree heard no voice. That voice is one he never shall hear" (336). The significance behind her strong use of religion is that Stowe was trying to create a hidden message in the story: that no genuine Christian would support slavery.
Through the above types of communicating her argument, Stowe was tremendously successful in convincing any reader of the evils of slavery. The readers will most likely feel moved, emotional, and supportive toward any slave, which was the author's objective.
The actual sources and research that Stowe used are unclear. From some research of my own I learned that much of her information came from her servants who were former slaves. While she never actually visited a "deep-south" plantation such as Legree's, she did experience some mild slavery around her. The last chapter of her book is basically her defense for her research. Unable to get an actual comparison between her version and others, it is hard to determine the accuracy. I believe that her research was very good for what was available at the time and generally accurate. There may have been some stretches from the truth, but she was overall fairly factual.
On the whole, the novel was virtuous. As a piece of fictional literature, it is excellent and it is difficult to find a better story. As a historical book, it could be improved, especially in accuracy, but of course the historian reader has to keep in mind that that was not her intention. She set out to make an emotional story to convert people in the North to be compassionate and that was accomplished.
I would highly recommend this book to anybody old enough to comprehend the meaning behind it. For AP students, the book can help them to understand the social situations before the Civil War. At the same time, it is not the best for a historical book review of this sort because it argues for something irrelevant today and does not look upon the topic from a historical point of view.
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Title: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Cliffs Notes) by Thomas Thornburg, Mary Thornburg ISBN: 0764586777 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 11 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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