Book Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin ot Life Among the Lowly, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1952.

This is a fascinating book.  It was written many year ago, and published in 1852 as an antislavery novel.  It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  It was the most read novel of the 19^th century, and more copies of this were sold than any other book with the exception of the Bible. 

The story of this book is very exciting.  It shows many different kind of slave holders, and even though some are kind and good, it also tells how those who are kind and good, make it possible for the tyrant to exist.  This book actually tells many stories, but mostly it tells the story of Eliza, who runs away when her baby when he is sold to a slave runner, and Tom, who refuses to run away when he has the chance, saying he would rather honor his master by doing what he thinks is right, rather than run away.  Eliza is successful in making her escape.  She crosses the Ohio on floating ice, jumping from one ice flow to the next while holding her baby.  Her escape, and that she could keep her baby safe, is a miracle.
http://bwardlehistory.blogspot.com/2014/07/slave-fugitive-eliza-harris-of-uncle.html 

Tom throughout the book has a sense of honor, and a pride which shows through in his Christian living. 

In writing the book, Stowe often goes on you person tangents, i.e. “now you see” so as to make her points about the cruelty about slavery.  One of things she attacks most about slavery is that it tears families apart, and she talks about this in telling several different stories. 

Towards the end of the book we are introduced to the tyrant master, Mr. Simon Legree.  Legree would prefer to use up his slaves and buy new ones, getting all he can from them, and beating them cruelly if they don’t perform.  He beat Tom cruelly, and eventually has his two overseer negroes beat him to death.  However, when they see Tom’s Christian nature, the repent.  They say they will refuse to do anything like this again.

This book does a great job of getting its message across.  Reportedly when President Lincoln met Stowe he commented, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.”  Records of this statement were not recorded the night of the meeting, but her son remembered it later.   Whether the statement is true, her book was very influential.  It also is good at describing the attitudes of many towards slavery and African Americans.  The Northern church that supports slavery by investing in slaves, although not participating; the laws that were made to appease slave traders, and slavery in general, including the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  (Later she explains that this motivated her to write the book.) 

Tom is a person with bad luck, but always loyal and hard working.  He has a good master, and pretty much runs the place.  However, the master gets in debt, and is forced to sell Tom.  Tom has a wife and children, and is separated, with the promise they will buy him back when circumstances are better.  He is bought by a good family, Augustine St. Clare who has a daughter Eva.  Eva wants the slaves to be freed.  She is sickly, and gets her father to promise to free them before she dies.  St. Clare is going to do this, but he is murdered in a bar fight, and Tom is sold farther south to Legree.  Legree is determined to break tom, to make him so he is no longer a Christian.  Legree fails.  In this aspect, the book seems like Job, but Legree does kill Tom in the end. 

Movie Review: ***Twelve Years a Slave (2013)

http://bwardlehistory.blogspot.com/2014/07/kidnapped-slave-solomon-northup.html
My history blog on this story

This movie tells the tragic story of Soloman Northup (Chiwetil Ejiofor), who was a free slave living in Saratoga, New York.  There he had a wife and children.  However he was lured south, to Washington D.C. by a couple of men who claimed to be looking for a violinist to help in their act.  However after betting to D.C., where slavery was legal, they drugged him during his dinner.  He woke the next morning in chains at a slavery holding pen, from where he was sent father south, and sold into slavery.  He was a slave for twelve years, having to change his name to Platt.
As for a movie, I cannot recommend this movie.  However as for a story, I heartily recommend it.  There are scenes, which were not needed to tell the story, which earned the movie an "R" rating.  However one scene, where a slave woman is brutally beaten, was a necessary scene, and really brings to light the brutality of the slave system.  Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), the woman beaten, had been the rape victim of the master, and thus earned the hate of the master's wife, who knew what was happening. 

Musical Movie Review: ***Huckleberry Finn (1974)

This is a musical telling of Huckleberry Finn.  This is very true to the story of Huckleberry Finn, but the music is really not that impressive.  There is a very low bass on the song "Huckleberry Finn" and Jim sings about freedom.  This story made the point that Jim (Paul Winfield) had a wife and a newborn child.  Huck (Jeff East) had been taken in by a couple old women.  So when Huck's father comes asking for $1000 Jim knew the only thing they owned to raise that kind of money was himself.  So he took off, with the hope of earning his freedom and getting enough money to buy the rest of his family, so they could stay together.  They were headed to Cairo, Illinois.
When I was young I didn't understand why.  In fact it seems the were headed to New Orleans.  In both cases it would be because this was during the war, and he was trying to meet the Union army, where the union had already proclaimed that slaves of the states in rebellion were free.
As for Huckleberry's part, he was taken by his father, and locked in his cabin.  He managed to escape, and was also headed down river.  Jim fashions a raft, and together the head down river.  They have many adventures, mostly with Jim staying with the raft, while Huck goes to explore.  Huckleberry ends up in the middle of a feud, and barely escapes with his life.  He and Jim meet a couple con men (Harvey Korman and David Wayne), and Huckleberry and Jim barely escape with their lives when the pretend to put on a show, but then make off with the ticket sales with no show.  Huckleberry then ends up with another family.  The con men pretend to be long lost relatives of a deceased person, and want to claim the inheritance.  Huck swindles them, and puts the money in the casket.  In the meantime the rightful relatives show up, and things are bad for the con men and Huck says where the money is.
However when he returns to the raft, Jim is gone.  The con men turned him into the slave hunters, and he is headed back to slavery, instead of to Cairo.  Huck manages to set him free, and they run away chased by the coon dogs and men.  Huck trades him shirts, agreeing to go back to his life with the old women, while Jim escapes.  The movie ends with Jim getting away while Huck watches.
I liked the way this movie presented the desire to be free, and the sacrifice for freedom and family.  It was also very true to the book.  The music was forgettable.