Modern Criticism of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin It is extremely difficult for the modern reader to understand and appreciate Uncle Tom’s Cabin because Harriet Beecher Stowe was writing for an audience very different from us. We don’t share the cultural values and myths of Stowe’s time, so her novel doesn’t affect us the way it affected its original readers. For this reason, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been heavily scrutinized by the modern critic. However, the aspects of the novel that are criticized now are the same aspects that held so much appeal for its original audience. Many people condemn Uncle Tom’s Cabin simply because it is a sentimental novel. This genre appeals to the reader’s emotions in order to enact social change. While popular during Stowe’s time, the sentimental novel is now scorned by many members of the academy, such as Baldwin: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a very bad novel, having, in its self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality, much in common with Little Women” (496). Some modern readers are repulsed by Stowe’s desire to reform society, but that is because in our times the purpose of literature is to represent the world, not change it. Because the modern critic finds it hard to identify with Stowe’s genuine desire to improve society, he sees it as an example of her self-righteousness. Because the sentimental novel appeals to the reader’s emotions, many of its scenes may strike the modern reader as overly dramatic. Baldwin claims "the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumani... ... middle of paper ... ...lture. Most twenty-first century readers are annoyed by the novel’s sentimentality, the religious undertones, and the martyr figures, among other things, but these same qualities that we dislike are what appealed to the novel’s original audience. Being outsiders, it is hard for us to accept Stowe’s message that love must conquer social injustices. However, one must wonder if her own contemporaries accepted this message, since Stowe would have seen the Civil War as forcing change within society without eliminating the prejudices that produced it. Bibliography Baldwin, James. “Everybody’s Protest Novel.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ed. Elizabeth Ammons. New York: W.W. Norton & Company; 1994. 495-501. Tompkins, Jane. “Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Politics of Literary History.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ed. Elizabeth Ammons. New York: Norton; 1994. 501-522.
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.
I never thought that I would read a book over the summer, but over the course of these past two months, that changed. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” forever changed how I view slavery. I loved reading it. Throughout the whole novel, Stowe uses her experience and knowledge to portray the terrible hardships and struggles that slaves endured everyday. Not only does this book express the thoughts of the slaves and their faith in God, but also of the people around them. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” wanted so badly for America to give freedom and equality for all people, and that is what I enjoyed most while reading.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” opened the eyes of millions of people worldwide. The book portrayed the brutal life of the black slaves. It went on to sell millions of copies and was given the title “The Greatest Book of the Age”. (pg. 616) It is had been commented that this book had helped “lay the groundwork for the Civil War”, according to Will Kaufman, and is widely regarded to one of the reasons of the Civil War. Langston Hughes refers to this book as a "moral battle cry for freedom." The characters in her book debated the causes of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the future of freed persons, individualism and racism. The Civil War arose from a combination of causes counting regional conflicts between the Southern and Northern states, economic forces, and humanitarian concerns for the welfare of enslaved people. The four year war opposed one section of the country against each other and nearly rescinded the United States of America. It is no wonder why when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe, he responded that she was “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war” and I would agree with that statement of his. Whether this is true or not, the gush highlights the public linking between Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Civil War.
There is no doubt among most historians that Stowe’s book affected many people’s views on slavery; but one question that is being asked today is whether the book was historically accurate. Some think believe it recorded exactly the sort of things that went on among slaves and their owners while other people say that Stowe made an elaborate exaggeration of the evils of slavery just so she could prove her point. Was Uncle Tom’s Cabin close to the truth? An examination of current work on the history of the U.S. should reveal the merits of Stowe’s writing.
Perkins George, Barbara. The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Many people believe the efficient market hypothesis is inefficient and Bloomfield presents an alternative to this hypothesis. Bloomfield posits the meaning of costly statistics is not fully revealed in the market. Some investors put more importance on some statistics rather than others which indicates that some statistics are less exposed in market prices. IRH essentially extends EMH by identifying extraction costs of statistics from publicly available data.
The efficient market hypothesis has been one of the main topics of academic finance research. The efficient market hypotheses also know as the joint hypothesis problem, asserts that financial markets lack solid hard information in making decisions. Efficient market hypothesis claims it is impossible to beat the market because stock market efficiency causes existing share prices to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information . According to efficient market hypothesis stocks always trade at their fair value on stock exchanges, making it impossible for investors to either purchase undervalued stocks or sell stocks for inflated prices. As such, it should be impossible to outperform the overall market through expert stock selection or market timing, and that the only way an investor can possibly obtain higher returns is by purchasing riskier investments . In reality once cannot always achieve returns in excess of average market return on a risk-adjusted basis. They have been numerous arguments against the efficient market hypothesis. Some researches point out the fact financial theories are subjective, in other words they are ideas that try to explain how markets work and behave.
The CAPM is the best method of determining the cost of equity for General Mills, inc. (NYSE: GIS). Using CAPM calculations, GIS target for December 2013 is $50.60 (Reuters, 2013). If this security becomes untenable in one year’s time, then the option of increasing dividends to boost investor confidence can be explored. The APT is less accurate compared to the CAPM and the dividend growth models. However, CAPM seems to be the easiest to use. The isolation of the Beta assumptions into a single variable fits the current state of the company best when using the CAPM.
Since the 17th century when African slaves were brought over by Dutch slavers, Christianity has been used to justify the act of enslavment. Missionaries sailed with slavers and tried to convert the Africans sold into slavery many times. During the 19th century Christianity was a great factor in helping institutionalize and even justify the suffering of the slaves. Slaves were made to believe through verses of the Bible that if they suffered in their current lives, they would have a better existence after they passed on. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, puts forth the lives of many different slaves and their masters in a way that was one of the contributing factors to igniting the civil war. The book focuses on the tension between the morality of religion and how religion was used to institutionalize slavery, particularly for the main character, Tom. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin presents the interpretative tension between religion and how it was used by the white slaveholders to rationalize Tom’s bondage and servitude for him and themselves.
...t Efficiency and Stock Market Predictability" [Online] Available On: http://www.e-m-h.org/Pesa03.pdf [Accessed On 5 december, 2011].
...factor models (Bhatnagar and Ramlogan 2012). The two models APT and CAPM should not be seen as alternatives because CAPM attempts to describe the underlying relationships of the market, as opposed to APT, which provides an explanation of current market conditions (Laubscher 2002). Such testing assessments will increase the understanding of risk and return relationship and stock markets pricing instruments.
To begin with, the tree is beautiful, but when the trimmings are removed it is left with little substance , in the same way that the Helmer’s marriage is left with little substance after Nora’s miracle fails to happen. This can be seen...
Ritter, Lawrence R., Silber, William L., Udell, Gregory F. 2000, Money, banking, and Financial Markets, 10th edn, USA.
... while using the beta approach as a guide. Returns may also rely on general market swings, changes in interest rates and inflation, to changes in national income and other economic factors.
The Modern portfolio theory {MPT}, "proposes how rational investors will use diversification to optimize their portfolios, and how an asset should be priced given its risk relative to the market as a whole. The basic concepts of the theory are the efficient frontier, Capital Asset Pricing Model and beta coefficient, the Capital Market Line and the Securities Market Line. MPT models the return of an asset as a random variable and a portfolio as a weighted combination of assets; the return of a portfolio is thus also a random variable and consequently has an expected value and a variance.