• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

November 2008: Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin

oskylad said:
You must not have run into any Australian Aborigines.
Click to expand...

Any time we define a group of people as not human, whether Jews or blacks or aborigines or an alien tribe, terrible consequences ensue. In one of her books, Stowe makes this point through the words of one of her southern characters who explains patiently that, since the slaves are property, they do not have human rights.
 
I hope my reference to the Australian Aborigines was understood to refer to the discriminatory way they were treated by the European settlers, not vice versa. I don't have enough information to judge whether the Aborigines also practiced discrimination. We usually think of discrimination as coming from the people in power, but I guess it can and often does go both ways.
 
oskylad said:
I hope my reference to the Australian Aborigines was understood to refer to the discriminatory way they were treated by the European settlers, not vice versa. I don't have enough information to judge whether the Aborigines also practiced discrimination. We usually think of discrimination as coming from the people in power, but I guess it can and often does go both ways.
Click to expand...

I meant what you meant, that the aborigines were discriminated against. My more general point is that when we see people as less than human or other than human - as property in the case of the slaves - then bad treatment follows.
 
I just finished Uncle Tom's Cabin last night. I found it to be a wonderful and inspirational read, if not a bit romanticized. At the same time, it's a very emotionally draining book.
 
Wonderful book! I can't believe I didn't read this earlier. I can only wonder about the impact this book must have had in the era that it was written.
 
Robert said:
Wonderful book! I can't believe I didn't read this earlier. I can only wonder about the impact this book must have had in the era that it was written.
Click to expand...

That's what I love about BOTM, I read books I would never have picked up on my own.

I am only halfway done,but very powerful and emotional read.The strength of the slaves to run to freedom and also the strength of the ones who had the guts to help them.
 
Libra said:
That's what I love about BOTM, I read books I would never have picked up on my own.

I am only halfway done,but very powerful and emotional read.The strength of the slaves to run to freedom and also the strength of the ones who had the guts to help them.
Click to expand...

And you'll see even more towards the end the strength of those who stay too.
 
The whole scene in the kitchen with Dinah and Miss Ophelia was fun to read,kinda lightened up the gloom a bit.

Prue's discussion with Tom was interesting also ,about her prefering to be dead and in torment than ending up in heaven with the whites.


What does everyone think about St.Clare?
 
I just finished reading the chapter that introduces Topsy.

The more I read, the more I like St. Clare in the novel. You gotta love how he makes his cousin put her money where her mouth is when he gives her Topsy to educate. ;)
 
I loved Topsy. You could tell she was just yearning for love.

As for St Clare, I liked him for the most part. I kept wishing he would stand up more to his wife though. She was a riot--every word out of her mouth had me in stitches because it was so ludicrous.

Spoiler: I also wished that St Clare would have listened to Ophelia about planning for the future, but I guess hindsight is 20/20. /
 
Topsy is a joy to read about.

Topsy: "Cause I's wicked,-I is.I 's mighty wicked,anyhow."I can't help it."

As for St.Clare ,I can't make an opinion of him yet.His explanation between slave owners and capitalists I found interesting:

"The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave to death,-the capitalist can starve him to death."

any enlightenment on this?
 
Libra said:
Topsy is a joy to read about.

Topsy: "Cause I's wicked,-I is.I 's mighty wicked,anyhow."I can't help it."

As for St.Clare ,I can't make an opinion of him yet.His explanation between slave owners and capitalists I found interesting:

"The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave to death,-the capitalist can starve him to death."

any enlightenment on this?
Click to expand...

I see St Clare's point, definitely. Which the end of the book sheds light on. If you free a slave that's been treated well and likes their master, you may find that they refused to leave because they were offered security if they stayed with their master.

Now, if you have a master like Legree, obviously any slave that could would leave as opposed to being subjected to Legree's atrocious behaviors. However, once a slave does leave, where do they go from there? How do they support themselves and their families? A great deal of them, although hard workers, did not have the necessary education to support themselves, not to mention the prejudice against them even from the abolitionists, who may not think they should be subjected to the torturous role of shackled slave but aren't willingly to help much once they are free.

Going out into the world after you've been isolated for so long and not educated must have been daunting. And while slaves were kept, they at least had a roof over their heads and a meal, for the most part, whereas upon release, they had to learn how to provide for themselves when none of them had been given the tools to do so.

So I completely understand St Clare's statement. In the end of the book, when young Master Shelby releases his slaves, a lot of them ask to stay even before he makes them aware of the fact that he's planning to pay them for their work. /
 
I was in the same thought process as Miss Ophelia,how can he compare the two.Thanks wells83. On with the reading....
 
I'm running a bit behind most of you. I am finding the book to be far better than I expected, and am glad it was selected.

One thing I am find interesting is the way Ms Stowe handles the varieties of religious expression. Today, it seems most books that have religious characters either classify those with religious faith as being blue-nosed or charlatans or blatant hypocrites. Those few that have positive religious characters seem to put them up against secularists, not persons with differing religious outlooks.

But not so with Ms Stowe. She is quick to put down those whose actions do not befit their faith, but equally quick to honor those whose actions are based on their faith.

For example, in Chapter XIV Haley says: "I know there's differences in religion. Some kinds is mis'rable: there's your meetin pious; there's your singin, roarin pious; them ar an't no account, in black or white; - but these rayly is; and I've seen it in niggers as often as any, your rail softly, quiet, stiddy, honest, pious, that the hull world couldn't tempt 'em to do nothing that they thinks is wrong; ...."

Ms Stowe is also strong in support of those who put their religious beliefs ahead of the laws of the state. In Chapter IX, Mary Bird says: "Now, John, I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow." John responds: "But in cases where your doing so would involve a great public evil--" And Mary interrupts: "Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can't. It's always safest, all round, to do as He bids us."

Even those that don't profess Christianity but behave like persons of faith are honored. In Chapter VII, the man who helped Eliza when she landed in Ohio was described by Ms Stowe as "... this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do."
 
oskylad, alot of religious expressions.I find like today,as back then,people use religion to their advantage.To make a point when they need to for their own "ideas" and what is right. Use what they need and discard the rest.

I stayed up and finished it last night.I thought it was a good read but emotionally draining story like wells83 said.Makes you sit back and think of humanity and how we can act sometimes.

I am glad it was picked also.
 
Libra said:
oskylad, alot of religious expressions.I find like today,as back then,people use religion to their advantage.To make a point when they need to for their own "ideas" and what is right. Use what they need and discard the rest.
Click to expand...

Libra - Do you think Ms Stowe was using religion to make a point for her own needs, or rather to make a point for what is right and wrong? Was the abolitionist movement generated by people seeking to satisfy their own needs, or by people who recognized that slavery was an immense wrong?
 
oskylad said:
Libra - Do you think Ms Stowe was using religion to make a point for her own needs, or rather to make a point for what is right and wrong? ?
Click to expand...
I think she tried to imply religion to make a point to both.She wrote in such a way that it leaves the reader to decide.It took alot of courage to write such a novel at that time.Take Tom for instance,he did not budge under the orders of Legree,but Cassy did what she had to do to survive.Who is to say is more pious there and should Cassy be less loved by God because she fought for survival?


oskylad said:
Was the abolitionist movement generated by people seeking to satisfy their own needs, or by people who recognized that slavery was an immense wrong?
Click to expand...
Both I think,some feared the wrath of God and if they got into heaven and others saw that slavery was an immense wrong.

St. Clare still baffles me.Although he was a good "master",
he never freed them,and he seems to me that he was the type seeking to satisfy his own needs,and by that I mean his soul before he died.He allowed the floging by others,even witnessed Henrique abusing the young boy and didn't do anything.
 
I finally finished reading it! Wow, this is just an astounding book now that I have completed it. I found myself on the verge of tears several times there at the end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top