wuzhang

First, I want to thank Dotte, my friend since first grade who now lives across the country from me, for recommending this book. Even though it’s an American classic, I’d not read it before. Having said that however, I was surprised when I commenced reading that many of the characters were familiar to me. Eliza, escaping the slavers by leaping on ice floes to cross the river brought to mind the scene from “The King and I” where the king’s wives re-enact the scene shouting “run Eliza run.” The song “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah” when I discovered the St Clare’s cook was named Dinah; Simon Legree—the personification of evil; Topsy—a sprite full of mischief. . . Perhaps the most misunderstood of these literary icons is Uncle Tom himself, a term synonymous with a spineless black man, a ‘sell-out’ to his race. Stowe’s Uncle Tom is anything but that. Tom is color blind—he looks at all people with kindness and faith in their humanity. He’s not subservient but strong, deriving his strength from his belief in God and in staying true to his convictions. In so doing he is able to influence his fellow man more than all of Legree and his like can with their violent acts. I loved the parts of the book that demonstrate the cleverness of the slaves, like when they work together to give Eliza time to escape the slave trader Haley—Black Sam puts a beechnut under Haley’s saddle so his horse will throw him and then instructs the other slaves to pretend to try and catch the horses while chasing them into the woods. And, Aunt Chloe buys more time by delaying supper by every trick she knows, and Sam tricks Haley into taking the old road to the river which delays them even more and so on. I didn’t give the book five stars because at times Stowe is a bit heavy-handed with her sermonizing. Overall, I liked her writing style, couched in the expressions and diction of her time, but I could have used a little less preaching. I also felt she tied it all up a little too neatly at the end, which for me, detracted from the believability of her story. More than anything I’ve read though, this book reveals what it was like to be black in America before Emancipation. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it—that Harriet Beecher Stow, a female author, had the conviction and writing ability to be credited as a strong force in ending slavery in the United States.

2022-10-21 05:27