"Cliff Notes - Uncle Tom's Cabin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Augustine St. Clare seems in some ways to be Harriet Beecher Stowe's favorite character, and many readers are fond of him as well. Have you ever known anyone like him--charming and cynical on the surface, yet good underneath? Does he seem realistic to you? Given his beliefs, why do you think St. Clare doesn't free his slaves?

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: EVANGELINE ST. CLARE

Evangeline St. Clare is a beautiful child, spiritually as well as physically. She is filled with goodness and love. Her kindness to those around her, especially the slaves, brightens their lives, and leads some of them to embrace the Christianity she so instinctively radiates. Eva is responsible for St. Clare's purchase of Uncle Tom, and Tom becomes her special friend. The two spend hours poring over the Bible and discussing religion. The black slave and the little blonde girl are kindred spirits.

But Eva--whose name suggests the Evangelist--becomes ill and dies. On her deathbed, she distributes locks of her hair and loving wishes to everyone around her.

Is little Eva a real child? Do you think she ever got angry or fell down and tore her dress? Few of Stowe's major characters have much interior life, but to many readers little Eva seems to be the least realistic of all, a symbol with blonde curls rather than an actual person.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: MARIE ST. CLARE

Marie St. Clare is a beautiful but spoiled woman who ignores everyone's feelings but her own and takes advantage of her servants. A hypochondriac, constantly claiming to have headaches, she cannot understand either her husband or their daughter. She doesn't pay much attention to either of them, except to complain. Because Marie can't act for anyone but herself, she fails to prevent Uncle Tom's sale to Simon Legree.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: OPHELIA

Ophelia St. Clare comes from Vermont to manage her cousin Augustine's New Orleans household. Her thrifty New England ways contrast with the easy-going St. Clare style. One of Ophelia's functions in the novel is to contrast the North and the South. An abolitionist, Ophelia finds slavery "perfectly horrible," and she rails against it in her running debate with Augustine. Although she hates slavery, she doesn't like slaves very much either. Augustine is quick to point this out, and she agrees. Her experience with Topsy nearly causes her to give up on the young slave. But little Eva's example shows Ophelia how to love Topsy, and her love produces the positive results that scolding Topsy never could have achieved. Forceful, efficient, and good, Ophelia takes Topsy back to Vermont after St. Clare's death. Her letter to Mrs. Shelby results eventually in George Shelby's attempt to rescue Uncle Tom.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: ALFRED AND HENRIQUE ST. CLARE

Alfred St. Clare, Augustine's dark, forceful twin brother, is a stern but decent slaveowner. The contrast between the twins contrasts their two approaches to slavery. Similarly, dark, handsome, proud, and angry Henrique, Alfred's son, contrasts with his blonde, loving cousin Eva. Henrique is cruel to his slave, Dodo, but Eva reaches him with her love.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: TOPSY

Ignorant but energetic, Topsy is brought by Augustine into the St. Clare household to see whether the high-principled Ophelia is actually capable of managing a slave. Topsy, who can't tell the difference between right and wrong, tries Ophelia's patience. Raised without parents (or belief in God--"I spect I grow'd," Topsy says), she finds it hard to form ties with other people. She senses that Ophelia cannot accept her because she is black. Little Eva's love for Topsy begins to change the girl's heart, and it eventually softens Ophelia as well. Ophelia secures Topsy's freedom, and after St. Clare's death they move to Vermont, where Topsy joins the church and eventually becomes a missionary. Why do you think so many readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin cite Topsy as their favorite character?

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: ADOLPHE, ROSA, JANE, DINAH, AND MAMMY

The well-treated slaves in the St. Clare household seem to be divided into two groups. Some, such as Adolphe, Rosa, and Jane, are light-skinned servants who borrow the St. Clare family's airs as well as much of its wardrobe. Others, such as Dinah the cook, and Mammy, are dark-skinned, hardworking, and realistic.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: PRUE

A worn-out, hard-drinking woman, Prue is beaten to death by her owners. Tom discovers the cause of her misery--like so many other slave women, she has lost her children to the slave-trader.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: SIMON LEGREE

Simon Legree is the owner of a plantation on the Red River in Louisiana. Sadistic and cruel, he breaks his slaves in body and soul and works them to death. Legree has no real human ties. He has sexual relations with slave women whom he buys for that purpose, and his main companions are the barbaric Sambo and Quimbo. Legree is interested in growing as much cotton as he can, as his bet with several other plantation owners indicates, but he also seems to enjoy abusing his slaves, particularly Uncle Tom.

Simon Legree comes from New England, where he was raised by a loving and God-fearing mother. At one time, the forces of good and evil struggled in his soul, but evil has long since won out. Stowe uses Legree's memories of his mother to explain why he is so superstitious--a weakness on which the plot depends. Not only does Legree drink and swear--important sins in Stowe's eyes--he displays a deeper evil as well. Her descriptions of the creepy, rotting plantation and the hanging moss, the wild carousing of Legree and his lieutenants, suggest that Legree may be the devil himself. Legree reinforces this suspicion when he urges Tom to "join my church."

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: CASSY

Cassy, the daughter of a wealthy white man and a slave woman, is sheltered and convent-educated. The death of her father results in her sale to a man who becomes her lover, and whom she adores. But after some years, he sells her and her children to pay a gambling debt. Cassy is driven half-mad by the loss of her son and daughter, and searches in vain for them. She is owned by a series of masters. By one of them she has a son, whom she kills with an overdose of opium rather than face the pain of losing another child to slavery.

When you meet Cassy at Legree's plantation, she has been his mistress for several years. The two fight constantly, and he has just sent her back to work in the fields, where her work is better than anyone else's. The superstitious Legree fears her, calling her a "she-devil." Cassy's emotional instability strengthens this impression, but Cassy also understands Legree well, and she manipulates him to achieve her ends. Eventually she uses her hold over Legree to enable herself and Emmeline to escape.

Cassy is good-hearted, as you see from her kindness to Emmeline and to Tom (whom she cares for after he is whipped). But the loss of her children and her experience as the mistress of men she doesn't love have hardened her. Cassy continually tells Emmeline to submit to Legree because there is no hope, and she tells Tom that his faith is in vain--God is nowhere on the Legree plantation. Yet, because of Tom's Christ-like influence, she learns to hope again. At Tom's deathbed, she cries for the first time in years and embraces religion. She escapes and eventually is reunited with her daughter--who turns out to be Eliza Harris--and her son.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: SUSAN, EMMELINE, AND LUCY