Gender in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe achieved what is, clearly, her greatest notoriety for writing the
novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin between 1851 and 1852. She was radically inspired by the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, and managed to write one of the most successful works
(if not the most successful work) of abolitionist literature. It is even said that Abraham Lincoln
described her as the “little woman” who started the “great war.” Though this presidential
endorsement might be entirely one of legend, it is still worth noting that Stowe has become
linked in the historical eye with the causes of the Civil War.
This meeting, of course, with Abraham Lincoln also serves to illustrate a greater
point: nobody can be sure of whether anything along those lines was actually spoken to
the “little woman.” Yet it has become a part of our collective historical memory, and has
become as good as fact in its recognizability. This identical situation is one that has befallen
Uncle Tom’s Cabin itself.
There is a public view of Uncle Tom, the character, held by anybody with a well-
tuned social conscience--which of course includes many, many people who have never so
much as opened the book. To a lesser extent, the same can be said for the characters of
Topsy, Eva, and Simon Legree, the latter being as much a staple of the Saturday-morning
cartoon canon as the literary canon.
We remember these characters, most of us without ever having actually met them.
Whether or not Stowe was offered such historical significance by the likes of Abraham
Lincoln takes a back seat to the fact that we remember her being assigned th...
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...is by casting Tom in the role of heroine that the audience is already so
comfortable reading about.
Works Cited:
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Bellin, Joshua D. “Up to Heaven’s Gate, Down in Earth’s Dust: The Politics of Judgment
in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” American Literature 65.2 (1993): 275-295
Bentley, Nancy. “White Slaves: The Mulatto Hero in Antebellum Fiction.”
American Literature 65.3 (1993): 501-522
Lang, Amy Schrager. “Slavery and Sentimentalism: The strange career of Augustine
St. Clare.” Women’s Studies 12 (1986): 31-54
Painter, Nell Irvin. “Honest Abe and Uncle Tom.” Canadian Review of American
Studies 30 (2000): 245-272
Stowe, Harrier Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life Among the Lowly. New York:
Modern Library, 2001.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Celestial Timepiece. July 2007. U of San Francisco. 15 Mar. 2008.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is told from the point of view of a girl with “long dark blond hair that drew anyone’s eye to it” named Connie. Connie was a very pretty fifteen year old girl, which loved to go out with her friends and meet new people. Laura’s, the best friend of Connie, father “drove the girls the three miles to town and left them at a shopping plaza so they could walk through the stores or go to a movie”. It became a lifestyle for Connie which eventually became a problem being that she met a suspicious
* Wegs, Joyce M. "'Don't You Know Who I Am?' The Grotesque in Oates' 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'" Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates. Ed. Linda W. Wagner. Boston: G. K. Hall 1979.
...er what escaped slaves followed through the Underground Railroad. As well with the famous fictional book of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In Uncle Tom’s cabin Stowe talks about the life of slaves in the plantation. Douglass also publishes an autobiography talking about the horrid life of a slave and how honored he was to had been able to learn how to read and write. All this propaganda caused commotion within the union and the confederates leading up to the war.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Exploring Literature: Writing and Arguing about Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. By Frank Madden. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 436-48. Print.
During a time when politicians hoped the American people would forget about slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel that brought it to the attention of thousands. Stowe’s ideas had a profound affect on a growing abolitionist movement not because they were original, but because they were common.
Frederick Douglass. As authors, their books, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Narrative of the Life of
Published in the early 1850’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a huge impact on our nation and contributed to the tension over slavery. It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a woman who was involved in religious and feminist causes. Stowe’s influence on the northern states was remarkable. Her fictional novel about slave life of her current time has been thought to be one of the main things that led up to the Civil War. The purpose of writing it, as is often said, was to expose the evils of slavery to the North where many were unaware of just what went on in the rest of the country. The book was remarkably successful and sold 300,000 copies by the end of its first year. It is even rumored that upon President Lincoln’s meeting Stowe, Lincoln said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.”
Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" written in the late sixties, reveals several explanations of its plot. The story revolves around a young girl being seduced, kidnapped, raped and then killed. The story is purposely vague and that may lead to different interpretations. Teenage sex is one way to look at it while drug use or the eerie thought that something supernatural may be happening may be another. The story combines elements of what everyone may have experienced as an adolescent mixed with the unexpected dangers of vanity, drugs, music and trust at an early age. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to choose what the real meaning of this story is. At one point or another one has encountered, either through personal experience or through observation, a teenager who believes that the world is plotting against them. The angst of older siblings, peer pressure set upon them by their friends, the need for individualism, and the false pretense that at fifteen years of age, they are grown are all factors which affect the main character in this story.
The decisions that you make throughout life can make or break you; you just have to make the right ones. In Joyce Carol Oates story “Where Are Your Going Where Have You Been?”, the main character is Connie. Connie had an older sister but she was nothing like her. Her older sister always pleased her mom, and Connie did not care. Connie and her friend hang out and go to the shopping center or the movies. One day they decided that instead of going to the mall they would go to the diner across the street. She met a boy named Arnold. After that night everything started to spiral down. “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” demonstrates a teenager who decided to cross the road and become a woman.
...es. A family’s strength determines the strength of the society in which we live. It is the responsibility of each of us to protect and strengthen families in whatever capacity we can. Perhaps it will once again flourish.
Through Frederick Douglass’ well crafted autobiographies, he was able to convince many people that slavery was awful and promote the abolishment of slavery.
One of the main themes discussed in this story is perfection which was evident by Aylmer obsessing over making his wife perfect by removing the birthmark off
In 1838, a mob in Philadelphia burned down Pennsylvania Hall because people were using it to hold abolitionist meetings. A year later, a mob in Alton, Illinois murdered anti-slavery editor Elijah P. Lovejoy when he was defending his printing press. The best-known abolitionist was Frederick Douglas, a former slave whose life story is well-known because he wrote the brilliant "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave." In his 1852 Independence Day address Frederick Douglass said, "Would you argue with me that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him." However, he wasn't the only former slave to write about the calamities of slavery. Josiah Henderson's autobiography was probably the basis for the most famous anti-slavery novel in American history: Uncle Tom's Cabin. Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more than a million copies between 1851 and 1854 and the book depicted the evils of slavery so well that it became banned in the South. But while based on a black man's story, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by a white woman, named Harriet Beecher Stowe which shows us that black abolitionists were battling not only slavery, but near pervasive
Everyone is born into some form of family, with the family taking the responsibility of nurturing, teaching the norms or accepted behaviors within the family structure and within society. There are many types of families, which can be described as a set of relationships including parents and children and can include anyone related by blood or adoption. Family is the most important, “for it is within the family that the child is first socialized to serve the needs of the society and not only its own needs” (Goode, 1982).