Slavery as an Attack on Domestic Life in Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Compromise of 1850 included The Fugitive Slave Law, a law forcing non-slave owners in the free Northern states to return escaped slaves to their Southern masters and participate in a system they did not believe in. Jehlen notes the reaction to this cruel governmental act by stating that "[t]he nation's growing guilt and apprehension is tangible in the overwhelming response to Uncle Tom's Cabin" (386). It seems hard to believe that people could find no wrong in making it a law to return humans as if they were property. In fact, Stowe wrote her most famous work, Uncle Tom's Cabin, at a most opportune time; indeed, she wrote it in response to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Knowing her audience would be primarily white women, Stowe played on their feelings of uneasiness and guilt over the treatment of slaves, especially those of the Northern white women who could help with the Abolitionist movement, by introducing her readers to seemingly real characters suffering from the injustice of slavery. This can be seen even in the style in which Uncle Tom's Cabin was written; Stowe directly addresses her readers, forcing them to consider slavery from the point of view of the enslaved. "Expressive of and responsible for the values of its time, it also belongs to a genre, the sentimental novel, whose chief characteristic is that it is written by, for, and about women" (Tompkins 124-25). Uncle Tom's Cabin is a sentimental novel; it was meant to appeal to the unsettled emotions that existed in the reader's mind, creating and sense of guilt and injustice, making them see how slavery destroys human lives and families. Through the introduction of ...
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... of California P, 1990. 39-60.
Brown, Gillian. "Getting in the Kitchen with Dinah: Domestic Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin." American Quarterly 36 (Fall 1984): 503-523.
Davidson, Kathy N. "Preface: No more separate spheres!" American Literature 70 (September 1998): 443-454.
Jehlen, Myra. "The Family Militant: Domesticity Versus Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Criticism 31 (Fall 1989): 383-400.
MacKethan, Lucinda H. "Domesticity in Dixie: The Plantation Novel and Uncle Tom's Cabin." Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts. Ed. Anne Goodwyn Jones and Susan V. Donaldson. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1997. 223-239.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.
Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811. Her father was Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Congregational Church in Harriet’s hometown of Litchfield, Connecticut. Harriet’s brother was Henry Ward Beecher who became pastor of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church. The religious background of Harriet’s family and of New England taught Harriet several traits typical of a New Englander: theological insight, piety, and a desire to improve humanity (Columbia Electronic Library; “Biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe”).
Tom's Cabin: A Norton Critical Edition by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Ed. Elizabeth Ammons. New York: Norton, 1994.
Board of Education case. Unlike the SCLC, SNCC was founded by African American college students whose original motives were non-violent Sit-ins and Freedom rides on interstate buses to determine whether or not southern states would enforce laws versus segregation in public transport. As SNCC became more politically active, its members faced violence increasingly. The SNCC responded by migrating from non-violence means to a philosophy with greater militancy after the mid-1960s, as a facet of late 20th-century black nationalism, a proponent of the burgeoning “black power” movement. The shift became personified when Stokely Carmichael replaced John Lewis. In December 1961, in a join effort, the SNCC and SCLC amongst other organizations launched a major campaign in Albany, Georgia, sparked by the civil rights bill which was then pending in congress. This was the high point of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s efforts and became popularly known as “Freedom Summer.” The objective of the campaign was to register disenfranchised African American to vote in hopes that they could have the bill passed. The effort especially drew massive attention, even national, when three of the SNCC’s workers, Andrew Goodman of New York, James E. Chaney of Mississippi, and Michael H. Schwerner, were killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The crusade brought visibility to the civil rights struggle which laid the groundwork for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of
Jehlen, Myra. "The Family Militant: Domesticity Versus Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Criticism 31 (Fall 1989): 383-400.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, was created on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh in April 1960. SNCC was created after a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service. This sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South. SNCC coordinated these sit-ins across the nation, supported their leaders, and publicized their activities. SNCC sought to affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of their purpose. In the violently changing political climate of the 60’s, SNCC struggled to define its purpose as it fought white oppression. Out of SNCC came some of today's black leaders, such as former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Together with hundreds of other students, they left a lasting impact on American history.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has had a tremendous impact on American culture, both then and now. It is still considered a controversial novel, and many secondary schools have banned it from their libraries. What makes it such a controversial novel? One reason would have been that the novel is full of melodrama, and many people considered it a caricature of the truth. Others said that she did not show the horror of slavery enough, that she showed the softer side of it throughout most of her novel. Regardless of the varying opinions of its readers, it is obvious that its impact was large.
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republic revolutionary military organization. It came from the Irish volunteers, which were created on November 25, 1913. The Irish volunteers started the Easter Rising in order to end the British Rule in Ireland, leading them to be titled as the Irish Republican Army in January 1919. In 1919, the Irish volunteers became confirmed by Irish Nationalists, Dail Eireann and were recognised as a legitimate army. The IRA raged Guerilla warfare against the British from 1919-1921, creating the Irish War of Independence. The IRA was active from January 1919 to March, 1922, though they are inactive now. The IRA’s main leader was IRA army council. Their headquarters were in Dublin Ireland, but they also operate out the United Kingdom, throughout Ireland, and Northern Ireland. The IRA was funded by extortion, bank robberies, and donations from their descendants. The Irish Republican Army’s main goal was to become independent from Great Britain.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern abolitionist, published her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin contracts the many different attitudes that southerners as well as northerners shared towards slavery. Generally, it shows the evils of slavery and the cruelty and inhumanity of the peculiar institution, in particular how masters treat their slaves and how families are torn apart because of slavery.
Even today, with literature constantly crossing more lines and becoming more shocking, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin remains one of the most scandalous, controversial, and powerful literary works ever spilled onto a set of blank pages. Not only does this novel examine the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward slavery, but it introduces us to the hearts, minds and souls of several remarkable and unprecedented characters.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ed. Philip van Doren Stern. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1964.
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of the Brown v. the Board of Education. This was a very historical moment because their ruling eliminated, the "separate but equal " doctrine. Their ruling called for school integration, although most school were very slow in complying if they complied at all. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Color People, viewed this ruling as a success. The schools lack of the obedience toward this ruling, made it necessary for black activism to make the federal government implement the ruling, and possibly help close the racial gap that existed in places other than public schools. During one of the boycotts for equality, a leader emerged that would never be forgotten. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, quickly became the spokesperson for racial equality. He believed that the civil rights movement would have more success if the black people would use non violent tactics. Some say he was adopting the style of Ghandi. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC, was formed by King and other activist in 1957. They were a group of black ministers and activist who agreed to try and possibly help others see the effects of a non violent movement. Also following the strategies set by the SCLC, a group known as the SNCC or the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, began a string of sit-in and campaigns as the black population continued it's fight for equality. It was the undying efforts of the two groups that paved the way for the march on Washington. This march which drew a crowd of at least 200,000, was the place that Dr. King, gave his famous "dream speech." Both the SNCC, and the SCLC were victims of lots of threats and attempted attacks, yet they continued to pursue freedom in a non violent fashion. However near the late 60's they had another problem on their hands. There was a group of activist known as the Black Panthers who were not so eager to adopt the non-violent rule. The believed that the civil rights movement pushed by Dr. King and is non-violent campaign, which was meant to give blacks the right to vote and eliminate segregation, was not solving problems faced in poor black communities. This Black Panther group, stabled the term "black power", which was used a sort of uplifting for the black self esteem.
Why did the southern states believe they could win the civil war? The southern states, known as the Confederacy were very confident going into this war that they could successfully defend their rights' and their way of life. They had many reasons for being so confident. First, the southern leaders were sure the north was not going to have a full-scale military conflict. They thought that a compromise and peace agreement could be reached after a short period of fighting. Second, the south was going to fight a defensive war. Third, the southern lifestyle made them familiar with firearms and horseback riding. Therefore they would be better soldiers than the northerners. Fourth, the south had a great source of wealth in its cotton exports and felt they would be able to fund the war. Last, the south thought that France and Britain would come to its aid. The south didn't want to defeat the north they wanted a compromise. Therefore, the north would not have the authority to govern them. The south did not have to win the war, it just had to keep the north from winning. On March 7, 1861 Jefferson Davis selected John Forsyth, A. B. Roman, and Martin J. Crawford to represent the Confederacy in a meeting with Lincoln's administration. Not trying two overpower anyone, the Confederate leaders said they simply wanted to be left alone. The Confederates thought to defend its region from being taken over and to keep its armies from destruction they would have to fight a very well planned out defensive war. The Confederate armies did not have to invade the north to win that kind of war. They need only to endure long enough to force the north to the decision that th...
English persecution of the Irish people is one cause of the tensions in Northern Ireland. Before 1793 Irish Catholics were persecuted by British law. Catholics were not allowed to buy and sell land, get proper education, marry Protestants or vote. This fueled problems in Ireland. After 1793 Britain was afraid, after loosing America, that a revolution would happen in Ireland. So the restrictions on the Irish Catholics were done away with. This however angered the protestants who formed the Orange Order, who was against the Catholics. This all came to a head when in 1798 when a small rebellion broke out.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army wasnt officially formed until 1969, but can trace its origins back to the 19th century in a country across the Atlantic. The story is told that sometime in June 1866 a group of about 800 armed men, most members of a group known as the Fenian brotherhood, fought a battle along the Canadian border with some young militia men. This group of men waged the tiny battle while flying a banner with the letters IRA printed across it. The reasoning for this was the men had been told that they were fighting in an attempt to create a base of operations for the separation of Ireland from the rule of British, ultimately the goal was to anhilate Great Britain. The group failed and retreated back towards the U.S. border, and the term IRA did not appear for another 50 years in an Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. A group of rebels led by a man named Patrick Pearse, seized the General Post Office and other public buildings, but this bloody conflict was quickly quelled. Despite the short-lived event, it awakened interest and support for the separation of Ireland from Britain. This uprising also produced the Proclamation of the Republic, which has been declared the founding document of the IRA. In 1921 treaty was signed that established the Irish Free State and two parliaments- one for t...
Northern Ireland, whom were mostly Protestant, remained part of the UK after controversially being partitioned from the largely Catholic Irish Free State. (Julian) Violence did not end for the south of Ireland. British troops stayed in garrisons until spring of 1922 and the final 6,000 soldiers did not leave until December of that year. There were numbers of killings of serving and former RIC personal, some killing civilians, by the IRA- 13 Protestant civilians around Dunmanway in Cork. The last bit of violence was in Northern Ireland. The IRA fought against Northern Ireland and British forces and most were imprisoned. (John)