George Sand wrote of Stowe's style in Uncle Tom's Cabin, "We should feel that genius is heart, that power is faith, that talent is sincerity, and finally, success is sympathy" (Fields, Ed., 154). Faith, sincerity, and sympathy are indeed the overarching narrative tones Stowe strikes in the novel and are the feelings she wishes to awaken in her readers. Sympathy is likewise what Eliot wishes to stir in her readers in relating Maggie Tulliver's tragic life. Both Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Mill on the Floss utilize religious themes to accomplish these aims. Each points out the hypocrisy of conventional religious sentiments, highlights sincere religious sentiments within a few select individuals, and compares its suffering hero/heroine to Christ the martyr. By casting their narratives in familiar religious paradigms, the authors ably strike deepest into the hearts of their readers, impressing them with the tragedy of the situations they describe.
Religious authority and traditional Christian themes play a significant role in Uncle Tom's Cabin. As part of the nineteenth century tide of American Protestantism in which social behavior and spiritual regeneration were seen as interdependent (Reynolds, 81), Stowe felt the novel was an "errand of mercy," by calling for an improvement in human welfare and humanitarian reform (Crim, Ed., 583). She contrasted the social system of slavery, which corrupted the owners, oppressed the innocent, and undermined American democratic ideals, with a theological system based on compassion, mercy, and "brotherly" love. And this theological viewpoint is presented as the higher moral authority, one that any true believer cannot fail to recognize and obey. The novel is both a...
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...ver and Uncle Tom, the authors challenge the reader to follow Christ's dictums of treating the lowly, the oppressed, and the suffering as you would him, and to love all others as one love's oneself.
Bibliography
Crim, Keith. Ed. The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions. San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981.
Feilds, Annie. Ed. Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897.
Jones, R. T. George Eliot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Newton, K. M. George Eliot: Romantic Humanist. Totowa, N. J.: Barnes & Noble, 1981.
Paris, Bernard J. Experiments in Life: George Eliot's Quest for Values. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965.
Reynolds, David S. Faith in Fiction: The Emergence of Religious Literature in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative of his Life both endeavor to stir antislavery sentiment in predominantly white, proslavery readers. Each author uses a variety of literary tactics to persuade audiences that slavery is inhumane. Equiano uses vivid imagery and inserts personal experience to appeal to audiences, believing that a first-hand account of the varying traumas slaves encounter would affect change. Stowe relies on emotional connection between the readers and characters in her novel. By forcing her audience to have empathy for characters, thus forcing readers to confront the harsh realities of slavery, Stowe has the more effective approach to encouraging abolitionist sentiment in white readers.
He includes various books of the era Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written, including those who criticized Stowe’s work. Charles Chesnutt claimed his novel “The Marrow of Tradition” would be embedded into “the popular mind as the legitimate successor of Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (Reynolds, 2011, p.205). Chesnutt’s work serves to verify the author’s argument of Uncle Tom’s influence on the nation. Reynolds also includes an excerpt of President Lincoln to support the fact that black slaves were more valuable as women because she “who brings a child every two years as more profitable” (Reynolds, 2011, p.60). Uncle Tom Mania by Sarah Meer is a novel that agrees with Reynolds’ argument of the cultural importance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Meer’s novel “Tom-Mania” is named after a British newspaper that gave light to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This novel looks upon the songs, plays, and imitations inspired by Uncle Tom’s Cabin, creating common ground on which Britain and the United States could debate slavery upon. Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Carl Walters is a novel that in ways both supports and contrasts Reynolds’ argument. Walters believes that Stowe’s novel was influential, but that the characters she has created are unrealistic. Walters’ novel revolves around Eliza and George Harris, creating and providing the reader with a much more realistic
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1850s that “changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property”. (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) This book “demanded that the United States deliver on the promise of freedom and equality, galvanized the abolition movement and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War”. (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) “The strength of Uncle Tom's Cabin is its ability to illustrate slavery's effect on families, and to help readers empathize with enslaved characters.” (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) As Foner mentioned: “By portraying slaves as sympathetic men and women, and as Christians at the mercy of slaveholders who split up families and set bloodhounds on innocent mothers and children, Stowe’s melodrama gave the abolitionist message a powerful human appeal.” (472) With this novel, Stowe wanted to convince Christians that God doesn’t’ approve slavery, that it is evil which must be destroyed.
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for centuries to come will be seen as a huge contributing factor to the occurrence of the U.S. Civil War when it happened. As people’s views change about things over long periods of time, what people believe about the moral rightness of the institution called slavery may also change. It is possible that slavery could one day be counted by the majority as proper. Uncle Tom’s Cabin could find itself on center stage in importance again in a debate over slavery. Until then, it is safe to say that its impact on society was massive in its time and will now be studied as a great contribution to our history.
In this novel as previously stated, we follow two distinct paths, which Stowe tries to illustrate for the reader. Tom is a man whom is not content with his situation, he is not happy to be viewed as an inferior being to people who are all the same, aside from the color of their skin. Tom is a great example of a devout Christian; he truly believes in the religion and practices what he preaches. He shows examples throughout the book of treating others, as he wants to be treated, though he hardly ever receives the same courtesy from others. The other road this book takes is a mothers struggle, Eliza, to find salvation for her and her family, when she hears th...
In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe is trying to show the people that a blending of Christian values and politics will help change and unite the nation. According to Professor Eric Sundquist, “the novel was revolutionary in demanding that the sacred and secular realms be united, that the role of God be reinserted into an American political system that paid lip service to Christian ideals and constantly invoked them in its discourse but failed to act upon them seriously.” Stowe believes that transformation could occur through the power of Christian love. It would not be enough to just change the laws for the people to change their views that have been instilled in them for generations. The people have to change their views to respect and love one another no matter their race or gender so we could come together to become better nation.
The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a short horror story about the narrator going insane and ends up killing a old man. It first starts off by the narrator going into the old man’s house spying on him. At night, exactly at midnight the narrator goes into the old man's house and watches him sleep. The narrator has a deep hate for one of the old man’s eye, he states it by saying, “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture-a pale eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees- very gradually-I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe, 355). One night while spying on the old man his thumb slipped on a tin, which frightened the old man. The narrator then stayed quiet for a long time, but then instantly killed the old man. He hid the body all around the house. A neighbor heard a scream during the night so they called the police, which arrived at the house. The narrator acted calmly and let the police in to search the house. Then the police wouldn’t leave the
Smith, Huston. World’s Religions: A Guide to our Wisdom Traditions. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994.
The behavior of the narrator in The Tell-Tale heart demonstrate characteristic that are associated with people with obsessive-compulsive disorder and paranoid schizophrenia . When Poe wrote this story in 1843 obsessive-compulsive disorder and paranoia had not been discovered. However in modern times the characteristics demonstrated by the narrator leads people to believe that he has a mental illness. Poe’s narrator demonstrates classic signs throughout the story leading the reader to believe that this character is mad
She describes the conversation between John and his wife Mary in the novel of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” how religion opposes to the act of slavery. Stowe points out Mary’s words that say, “ I do not 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” (829). She tries to convince readers that the act of the slavery is a mistake, and implementing such a law politically is against the Bible and their religious belief. She knew that Christianity has a great position among the American people and has a significant effect on each individual’s life. Therefore, obeying the law of the Christian means to oppose the political law and defense the fugitive
William Arthur Ward once said, "Real religion is a way of life, not a white cloak to be wrapped around us on the Sabbath and then cast aside into the six-day closet of unconcern." Religion is the one thing that people can usually tolerate but never agree upon. Each faith seems to have an ordained assumption that they have the correct thoughts on how to life one's life or how to think about things or the way to act in certain situations. Still, each religion has its own "sub-religions." If someone refers to Christianity, there are several different religions that are blanketed under that umbrella: Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian are just a handful. The inconsistencies that are associated with everyone's belief about religion run into deeper ruts of confusion. This confusion leads people to have distorted views as to what they believe and what their religion is all about. This is no different from the feelings about slavery by Christians in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Throughout the novel, Christianity presents itself in a few different lights; as a twisted and deformed glimmer of what religion is supposed to be with undertones of bigotry and prejudice, an innocent yet naive child that brings joy to everyone he or she meets, and as Uncle Tom himself, the standard for what a Christian is supposed to be. These different portrayals of Christian living come from Stowe's own beliefs about Christians and brings them into the light.
The movement westward during the late 1800’s created new tensions among already strained relations with current Native American inhabitants. Their lands, which were guaranteed to them via treaty with the United States, were now beginning to be intruded upon by the massive influx of people migrating from the east. This intrusion was not taken too kindly, as Native American lands had already been significantly reduced due to previous westward conquest. Growing resentment for the federal government’s Reservation movement could be felt among the native population. One Kiowa chief’s thoughts on this matter summarize the general feeling of the native populace. “All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it” (Edwards, 203). His words, “I don’t want to give away any of it”, seemed to a mantra among the Native Americans, and this thought would resound among them as the mounting tensions reached breaking point.
In the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, one of the main themes is religious faith; specifically Christian faith. Stowe’s characterization of this was that Christian faith is a strong force of love that has the ability to invalidate slavery. This was shown in many characters like Uncle Tom and Eliza. As a result of their strong Christian faith and values, Uncle Tom and Eliza were able to
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stow is a novel that addresses the controversial issues of slavery, having an awe-inspiring impact on American culture. Not only does it provide the reader with a feminist view on the role of women, but still raises concern of racism in today’s society. It has also has been the subject of constant criticism being banned from many schools, though portraying the smaller more personal tragedies caused by the slavery industry. By showing the harm that had been done to individuals the author emphasizes the belief that slaves are not property but human beings.
Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is a short story about how a murderer's conscience overtakes him and whether the narrator is insane or if he suffers from over acuteness of the senses. Poe suggests the narrator is insane by the narrator's claims of sanity, the narrator's actions bring out the narrative irony of the story, and the narrator is insane according to the definition of insanity as it applies to "The Tell Tale Heart".