by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Think not, when the wailing winds of autumn
Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,—
Think not all is over: spring returneth,
Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt see. Continue reading Think Not All Is Over
These are the final chapters and the climax of the novel.
The Martyr
“Deem not the just by Heaven forgot!
Though life its common gifts deny,—
Though, with a crushed and bleeding heart,
And spurned of man, he goes to die!
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every bitter tear,
And heaven’s long years of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.” BRYANT.[1] Continue reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Chapters 40, 41, 45
The following chapters show once again how precarious the lives of the enslaved could be. While Augustine St. Clare finds himself ready to take action in his own life against the evils of slavery under a Christian conviction nurtured by Eva and by Tom, events coincide to complicate Tom’s life once again. In Chapter 31 we are introduced to Simon Legree, Tom’s third and final human master. Of the three, two are portrayed as “humane” and the third as a brute, but Stowe shows that kind master or evil, an enslaved human is at the mercy of a system that defines him as chattel.
Chapters 15 and 16 introduce Tom’s new owners, a New Orleans family by the name of St. Clare. Augustine St. Clare and his wife Marie have an angelic daughter named Eva, and Augustine’s cousin Ophelia has come from her home in New England to manage the household due to Marie’s apparent incapacity. The chapters illustrate the various attitudes toward slavery among slave holders, and through Ophelia, Stowe draws the consciences of readers in her native New England into the fray.
Of Tom’s New Master, and Various Other Matters Continue reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Chapters 15, 16
Prior to Chapter 5, we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, farmers in Kentucky who own a fairly large estate and are presented as slaveholders who are kind to their enslaved workers. Eliza is the enslaved handmaid to Mrs. Shelby; she is light-skinned and is the mother of a young boy named Harry (her husband George Harris is enslaved on a neighboring farm). Chapter 4 introduces life in Uncle Tom’s cabin, where Tom, his wife Aunt Chloe, and their children live in the warmth of family and Christian devotion. We have also been introduced to Haley, a slave trader who has secured ownership of Shelby’s debt and is squeezing him to settle the account by selling some of his human property. The events in Chapter 5 illustrate how precarious the lives of “human property” can be even for those who live under “kind” masters.
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners Continue reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Chapters 5, 7, 9, 12
E. Bruce Kirkham Collection of Harriet Beecher Stowe Letters 1822-1896, Stowe Center for Literary Activism, Hartford, CT
Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe, A Life. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Bullen, George. “Introduction to the 1881 Edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, from Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1881.
Reynolds, David S. Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
Belasco, Susan ed. Stowe in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates. University of Iowa Press, 2009.
Leavitt, Sarah A. From Catharine Beecher to Martha Stewart: A Cultural History of Domestic Advice. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Foster, John T. & Sarah W. Calling Yankees to Florida: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Forgotten Tourist Articles, Second edition. Florida Historical Society Press, 2019.
Navakas, Michele Currie. Liquid Landscape: Geography and Settlement at the Edge of Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852
House & Home Papers, 1865
The American Woman’s Home, 1869
Pink & White Tyranny, 1870
My Wife and I, 1871
Old Town Folks (1869)
Sam Lawson’s Old Town Fireside Stories (1871)
Poganuc People (1878)