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

Susan, Emmeline, and Lucy are sold in the New Orleans slave market with Uncle Tom and the rest of the St. Clare family slaves. Susan and Emmeline, a religious mother and daughter, are heartbroken when they are separated and sold. Legree buys Emmeline to be his mistress, but she resists him. Her innocent sense of right and wrong contrasts with Cassy's worldly wisdom. For example, Emmeline thinks it's wrong for Cassy to steal money from Legree's jacket pocket, but this money pays their steamboat fare North. Emmeline marries a crew member on the ship that carries the Harris family, Madame de Thoux, and Cassy to France. Lucy is purchased by Legree as a mistress for his second-in-command, Sambo, although she had a husband and children in New Orleans. Lucy finds it difficult to work in the fields, and Tom helps her by secretly putting cotton into her bag so that she will be able to turn in the required amount of cotton each day.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: SAMBO AND QUIMBO

Sambo and Quimbo are Simon Legree's black lieutenants. Brutal and ignorant, they lord it over the other slaves. Legree manipulates them so that they fight with each other too. Both Sambo and Quimbo whip and otherwise abuse Tom, but they are converted by him in the end.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: MADAME DE THOUX

A "French lady" whom Cassy and George Shelby meet on their trip up the Mississippi River, Madame de Thoux turns out to be George Harris' long-lost sister, Emily. Sold as a girl at the New Orleans slave market, she was bought by a man who freed her, married her, and brought her to the West Indies. Now a wealthy widow, she travels with her daughter in search of her brother. With George Shelby's help, she tracks him down in Montreal and offers to share her fortune with him. Madame de Thoux accompanies the Harrises first to France and then to Africa.


^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: SETTING

Most of the action in Uncle Tom's Cabin occurs at three locations: the Shelby plantation in Kentucky (both the "big house" and Uncle Tom's cabin), the St. Clare house in New Orleans, and Simon Legree's plantation on the Red River in Louisiana. The slave system operated differently in each place, and the three locales together will give you an idea of the variety of slavery in the United States. There are also a number of less important settings--the Bird home in Ohio, the Quaker settlement, a Mississippi River steamboat, the St. Clare summer house on Lake Pontchartrain, and George and Eliza's Montreal apartment.

Most of these places are described realistically, with the exception of Legree's plantation, which sounds like the outskirts of hell. In general, Stowe is not especially interested in physical description, although she pays more attention to characters' appearance than to setting. She is more concerned with interiors than with exteriors, and she devotes more attention to a table laid for tea than to a forest. Indeed, most of the action of the novel takes place indoors.

^^^^^^^^^^UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: THEMES

The following are themes of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

1. THE EVIL OF SLAVERY

Stowe's aim in writing Uncle Tom's Cabin was to convince Americans that slavery was evil, and she hammers her point home on almost every page. Stowe shows not only the horrors that slaves endure--the separation of husbands and wives and mothers and children, overwork, physical punishment--but also the effect of slavery on the characters of the masters, like Alfred St. Clare and his son, Henrique.

The worst thing about slavery, as Stowe points out, is that it destroys the family. Slave mothers who have lost their children appear in almost every chapter. In addition, slavery destroys the soul. Several characters--Prue, Cassy, and to some extent, George Harris--have been so embittered by their experience that they no longer believe in God. Even Tom has to struggle to maintain his faith.

Although she indicts slavery as evil, Stowe also has harsh words for the Northerners who are unwilling to accept black people. She cannot decide how slavery should be abolished, except by the actions of individual slaveowners like George Shelby. But she fears that if slavery continues, America will be severely punished by God.

2. MOTHERHOOD AND FEMALE VALUES

Many of the characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin are mothers, and most of the black mothers have been separated from their children. Stowe appeals to the mothers among her readers to have sympathy for slave women. Motherhood, she both implies and states explicitly, teaches women to care about others as well as their own families.

The beliefs and qualities that Stowe values most--kindness, generosity, gentleness--were associated with women in the nineteenth century. (They were also all identified with Christianity.) Stowe portrays women as being morally superior to men. Women like Mrs. Shelby and Mrs. Bird try to convince their husbands of what is right. (They must persuade gently, however, and never fight against their husbands.) The male heroes of the novel--Uncle Tom and Augustine St. Clare--are both explicitly described as womanly, and George Shelby is portrayed as being close to his mother. If Harriet Beecher Stowe ran the world, men would be much more like women.

Although Stowe places female values at the center of her novel, how much power do the women characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin really have? Women in the novel certainly help each other reliably, but some readers have pointed out that Mrs. Bird and Mrs. Shelby aren't able to convince their husbands to do what is right. The only woman who really has power over a man, they point out, is Cassy, and she holds it because Legree fears she is half-crazy. (When Cassy is reunited with her daughter--when she becomes a whole woman again--her mental state improves.) One reader has pointed out that Eliza cannot even enter Canada, the land of freedom, as a woman. She must cut her hair and disguise herself as a man to take active steps toward gaining her freedom.

3. THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY

"What a thing it is to be a Christian!" Uncle Tom exclaims as he dies. Tom's religious faith is his outstanding characteristic. Stowe demonstrates the effect Tom's beliefs have both on his life and on those of the people around him. As practiced by Tom and little Eva, Christianity means love and forgiveness for all people. Tom adds self-sacrifice to this formula. He is willing to be sold and eventually to die for the good of others.

Stowe distinguishes Christianity both from the nonreligious attitudes of characters like George Harris and Cassy, who are bitter and potentially violent, and from the false Christianity of ministers who follow popular fashions, like "Dr. B." whose church Marie St. Clare attends.

The Christian values of love and self-sacrifice resemble closely the feelings of mothers. Some readers feel that Harriet Beecher Stowe equates being a good mother with being a good Christian.

4. THE IMPORTANCE OF HOME

You can see Stowe's interest in homes in her descriptions of domestic interiors. For Stowe, home was the most important place on earth, the place where people learn to love each other and to love God.