Uncle Tom's Cabin (Bantam Classics)
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Book Summary Information
Author: Harriet Beecher StoweEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1983-01-01
ISBN: 0553212184
Number of pages: 544
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780553212181
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Uncle Tom's Cabin (Bantam Classics)
Book Review: You will be shocked!
Summary: 5 Stars
I just want to take a chance to recommend this book to all Americans-it's an integral part of our history and I think it would help any reader better understand our country. We all know about the book and its author, have perhaps read a page or two in our highschool US history textbooks, and have undoubtedly heard the term "Uncle Tom". But how many of us have actually read it? This was what I was myself wondering when I came across it by chance and absentmindedly threw it into my bag when looking for new books to read at the library a few weeks ago.
I'm not sure I have anything to say about this book that other reviewers haven't said, but I just wanted to share how I, like others who read this book, was floored to discover that this book did not consist of a parade of one-dimensional, insulting black stereotypes who were sychophantic and devoted to their unjust masters. That's what we all thought it was and that's because people base their interpretations on the book on popular representations of it-not the actual text.
It was actually quite touching, revealing, and amazing in a number of ways. Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge that certainly, Stowe had adopted some of the beliefs of her time-she seemed to think that Anglo-Saxons were "naturally" colder and Africans "naturally" more loving and open to religion. Although I do think that is a form of racism, and I reject the idea of qualities "inherent" to any human group, I think it's important to distinguish that her black characters were not intellectually inferior or lazy or naturally criminal-the most common forms of racist imagining you will find. In fact, she would just as easily subject a mediterranean to the same sort of stereotyping-which is not to excuse it, simply to say it was not a black/white issue. All mainstream ethnography of the 19th century was quite off-track in just about every way and has been currently discredited. But Stowe was advanced beyond many who subscribed to it in a number of ways.
Another charge is that her book is melodramatic, and although it is far more sentimental than books we are used to in our own time, there's nothing wrong with that. And there are few things as melodramatic as sons separated from fathers, mothers from daughters, husbands from wives, or as people being whipped and starved to death with no recourse to justice, or as young woman raped and powerless to stop it. Inserting personal emotional comments may not be the style of today, but I think we have a lot to learn from it.
Parts of the book will always hold emotional weight and I think it's impossible not to imagine the insight, sensitivity, and bravery of the woman who wrote this book. In many ways she is surprisingly progressive-more so than many supposedly enlightened people today. Her heartrending and realistic descriptions of slave families being separated and put to auction will never lose their power or become dated because that's what really happened. Furthermore, she does a very skillful job of demonstrating time and time again that it doesn't matter if individual "masters" are benevolent-the fact of powerlessness and lack of independence means that the system itself will always result in vast injustice. Contrary to what some allege, she is not saying that slavery is the same thing as capitalism or "wage slavery". Although she thinks that the exploitation of impoverished workers (who have no rights) in industrializing England at that time is abhorrent, she has her spokespeople explain that slavery is yet worse because at least these cannot be separated from their family. In fact she is rejecting those-and it is always pro-slavery advocates who made this argument-that say that slavery is "no worse" and in some cases "better" than severe urban poverty in industralizing countries, or than the lot of impoverished peasantry in the rest of Europe.
The hero himself, Tom, is not an "Uncle Tom" in our contemporary sense. In fact, he does continually stand up to an abusive "master"-at the greatest personal cost. What he is, in fact, is a true Christian. It isn't about him believing himself inferior to whites-he certainly does NOT think that they are worth more than him. He is simply a profoundly religious man who will turn the other cheek-but he will NOT compromise with his intensely held morals, either for personal gain or in response to the threats of a violent master. People have here confused a powerful and moving0 interpretation of Christianity with weakness. Tom is actually the strongest character in the book.
In addition, the book is not simplistic. The "north" is not good and the "south" is not all bad. One of the aspects I really liked is that the north is taken to task for assuming moral superiority the South because of their treatment of blacks when, in fact, in many cases they were on an individual level more racist. St. Clare, one of Tom's "good owners", is a southern plantation owner who is conflicted because he knows slaveholding is wrong-and he feels no personal disgust toward blacks or any belief that they are inferior. Out of personal weakness he keeps his slaves.
In contrast, his yankee cousin Ophelia condemns his slaveholding but has a personal aversion to those of African descent that St. Clare never demonstrates. St. Clare brings her an intelligent but desperately abused slave girl-who later became a racist cartoon in popular representations of the text-and Ophelia discovers that "topsy" is an incredibly fast learner and capable of anything as long as she's given some love and not treated with disgust.
Also, the book's worst character, who sexually exploits his female slaves and drives the others to death, is a yankee. This is Simon Legree.
Another interesting aspect of the book is that although Tom is uneducated and speaks in slang, Stowe presented educated, and articulate slaves who had gotten more opportunities than Tom and were able to describe their plight in eloquent and moving words. One of these, George Harris, gives a very strong speech about his right to individual freedom, and is presented as being smarter and more innovative than his master-in fact an inventor of considerable intelligence-who makes his master insecure precisely because he is black AND smarter than him.
So it's not a book filled only with "simple, corn-bread eating" slaves as some would tell you.
I think those are all the really important things in the book, except that I was incredibly surprised at how powerful it still is after all these years and what an amazing message of Christian love it carries. Stowe has so much hope that humanity will abandon hatred and distinctions based on color and class-and that message continues to be more important than ever. I'm proud an American wrote such a book.
Summary of Uncle Tom's Cabin (Bantam Classics)
Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking, controversial, and powerful work -- exposing the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward "the peculiar institution" and documenting, in heartrending detail, the tragic breakup of black Kentucky families "sold down the river." An immediate international sensation, Uncle Tom's Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the first year, was translated into thirty-seven languages, and has never gone out of print: its political impact was immense, its emotional influence immeasurable.Classics Books
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