Rescuing the Real Uncle Tom

NY Times ^ | 06/14/11 | DAVID S. REYNOLDS

[Borges]

The novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe, born 200 years ago today, was an unlikely fomenter of wars. Diminutive and dreamy-eyed, she was a harried housewife with six children, who suffered from various obscure illnesses worsened by her persistent hypochondria.

And yet, driven by a passionate hatred of slavery, she found time to write “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which became the most influential novel in American history and a catalyst for radical change both at home and abroad.

Today, of course, the book has a decidedly different reputation, thanks to the popular image of its titular character, Uncle Tom — whose name has become a byword for a spineless sellout, a black man who betrays his race.

And we tend to think of the novel itself as an old-fashioned, rather lachrymose affair that features the deaths of an obsequious enslaved black man and his blond, angelic child-friend, Little Eva.

But this view is egregiously inaccurate: the original Uncle Tom was physically strong and morally courageous, an inspiration for blacks and other oppressed people worldwide. In other words, Uncle Tom was anything but an “Uncle Tom.”

[PzLdr]

Kind of like the way liberals have made “swiftboating” a synonym for “lying” when it’s the exact opposite.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, it was left-wing blacks recruiting for armed struggle (e.g. Malcolm X in his separatist NOI phase) --- not whites --- who turned "Uncle Tom" into a term of contempt. They have no use for a black man who, because of his innate moral strength and dignity, is not motivated by rage, envy, or revenge.

On a related note, I personally suspect that the same passel of liberal literary prudes who want to ban Huckleberry Finn (accordiing to the American Library Association, the most-frequently-complained-about library book in America) --- have not read that, either.

[Borges]

Austen’s prose is pristine and perfect. How is it not well written?

[Hulka]

Absolutely.

In the book we was the embodiment of Christian behavior and love, a man of decency and honor, and to have the race-baiting hucksters co-op his good mane and reputation is a great tragedy.

[Persevero]

“Hypochondria is not faking ailments, that is another disorder. It is the persistent concern about being ill or compulsive attention to symptoms.”

Ok, but I still don’t think they should accuse her of it. It seems low.

[Sherman Logan]

I’ve read UTC. While it has long segments of antiquated prose, sometimes painfully so, it also has passages of great dramatic power.

Interesting factoid. UTC has been in continuous print since written.

You can read or search it online.

http://www.online-literature.com/stowe/uncletom/

Uncle Tom himself is a wholly admirable character. Those who denigrate him are idiots, and are often the same people who glorify the gangbangers.

[Borges]

I presume it comes from the accepting scholarship on her - not something this column is introducing.

[Prince of Space]

Mr. Prince of Space’s aunt did some genealogy on their family and found they were related to HBS...as well as Warren Gamaliel Harding, lol.

Mrs. Prince of Space

[AnAmericanMother]

It was fairly common among Victorian ladies of a certain class, and yeah, it's pretty well documented.

Her daddy was Lyman Beecher, a hellfire and brimstone Presbyterian preacher, and her mama died when she was only 5. The whole family was roiled with religious controversy -- her older sister went through agonies when her fiance was drowned at sea, believing him to be in Hell. Her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was accused of adultery with a parishioner and the public trial was a huge scandal. It was enough to drive you to drink . . . or, in her case, to recline on the sofa and have sinking spells and go to warm climates 'for her health'. I can't say I blame her one bit.

By the way, she was a beauty when she was younger -

[AnAmericanMother]

Jane Austen? Come, come, now. If you're going to make a statement like that, you have to back it up.

When three such dissimilar writers as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James and Rudyard Kipling agree that Austen was a master, you're going to have to be very persuasive.

Fire away.

[youngidiot]

I don’t have a good case. Seems my name might be fitting in this case. I just always found her to be too predictable - it was easy to figure out who would end up with whom.

[Borges]

Austen was the first person to treat marriage as something more than a sentimental climax. She dealt with it as a complex social and moral negotiation that reveals human character. She was also one of the greatest satirists to ever write in English.

[AnAmericanMother]

A fair observation, and quite true.

But you can usually see it coming in real life. What Austen is writing about is not who gets whom but how they get there. From one of KIpling's characters, who made the same observation:

‘I mean that ’er characters was no use! They was only just like people you run across any day. . . . an’ some’ow Jane put it down all so naked it made you ashamed'