19th Century Fiction II

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19th Century Fiction II

Uncle Tom’s Cabin 4

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Chapter 13

• Rachel now took down a snowy moulding-board, and, tying on an apron, proceeded quietly to making up some biscuits, first saying to Mary,—“Mary, hadn’t thee better tell John to get a chicken ready?” and Mary disappeared accordingly.

• “And how is Abigail Peters?” said Rachel, as she went on with her biscuits.

• “O, she’s better,” said Ruth; “I was in, this morning; made the bed, tidied up the house. Leah Hills went in, this afternoon, and baked bread and pies enough to last some days; and I engaged to go back to get her up, this evening.”

• “I will go in tomorrow, and do any cleaning there may be, and look over the mending,” said Rachel.

• “Ah! that is well,” said Ruth. “I’ve heard,” she added, “that Hannah Stanwood is sick. John was up there, last night,—I must go there tomorrow.”

• “John can come in here to his meals, if thee needs to stay all day,” suggested Rachel.

• “Thank thee, Rachel; will see, tomorrow; but, here comes Simeon.”

• Simeon Halliday, a tall, straight, muscular man, in drab coat and pantaloons, and broad-brimmed hat, now entered.

• “How is thee, Ruth?” he said, warmly, as he spread his broad open hand for her little fat palm; “and how is John?”

• “O! John is well, and all the rest of our folks,” said Ruth, cheerily.

• “Any news, father?” said Rachel, as she was putting her biscuits into the oven.

• “Peter Stebbins told me that they should be along tonight, with friends,” said Simeon, significantly, as he was washing his hands at a neat sink, in a little back porch.

• “Indeed!” said Rachel, looking thoughtfully, and glancing at Eliza.

• “Did thee say thy name was Harris?” said Simeon to Eliza, as he reentered.

• Rachel glanced quickly at her husband, as Eliza tremulously answered “yes;” her fears, ever uppermost, suggesting that possibly there might be advertisements out for her.

• “Mother!” said Simeon, standing in the porch, and calling Rachel out.

• “What does thee want, father?” said Rachel, rubbing her floury hands, as she went into the porch.

• “This child’s husband is in the settlement, and will be here tonight,” said Simeon.

• “Now, thee doesn’t say that, father?” said Rachel, all her face radiant with joy.

• “It’s really true. Peter was down yesterday, with the wagon, to the other stand, and there he found an old woman and two men; and one said his name was George Harris; and from what he told of his history, I am certain who he is. He is a bright, likely fellow, too.”

• “Shall we tell her now?” said Simeon.

• “Let’s tell Ruth,” said Rachel. “Here, Ruth,—come here.”

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• The quote in the previous slide is important in two respects. First, the how the Quaker

society is depicted.

• Secondly, the sentimental novels reliance on larger-than-life occurances. Husband and wife, Eliza and George soon will meet through an

unrealistic coincidence.

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Chapter 14

• Is it strange, then, that some tears fall on the pages of his Bible, as he lays it on the cotton-bale, and, with patient finger, threading his slow way from word to word, traces out its promises? Having learned late in life, Tom was but a slow reader, and passed on laboriously from verse to verse. Fortunate for him was it that the book he was intent on was one which slow reading cannot injure,—nay, one whose words, like ingots of gold, seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the mind may take in their priceless value. Let us follow him a moment, as, pointing to each word, and pronouncing each half aloud, he reads,

• “Let—not—your—heart—be—troubled. In—my —Father’s—house—are—many—mansions. I—go—to—prepare—a—place—for

—you.”

• Cicero, when he buried his darling and only daughter, had a heart as full of honest grief as poor Tom’s,—perhaps no fuller, for both were only men;—but Cicero could pause over no such sublime words of hope, and look to no such future reunion; and if he had seen them, ten to one he would not have believed,—he must fill his head first with a thousand questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of translation. But, to poor Tom, there it lay, just what he needed, so evidently true and divine that the possibility of a question never entered his simple head. It must be true; for, if not true, how could he live?

• As for Tom’s Bible, though it had no annotations and helps in margin from learned commentators, still it had been embellished

with certain way-marks and guide-boards of Tom’s own invention, and which helped him more than the most learned expositions

could have done. It had been his custom to get the Bible read to him by his master’s children, in particular by young Master

George; and, as they read, he would designate, by bold, strong marks and dashes, with pen and ink, the passages which more

particularly gratified his ear or affected his heart. His Bible was thus marked through, from one end to the other, with a variety of

styles and designations; so he could in a moment seize upon his favorite passages, without the labor of spelling out what lay

between them;—and while it lay there before him, every passage breathing of some old home scene, and recalling some past

enjoyment, his Bible seemed to him all of this life that remained, as well as the promise of a future one.

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Time and again we should remember that Uncle Tom’s Cabin by all means from charcterization to plot development rely on Christinity and the Bible.

Therefore, Tom’s reading of the Bible emphasizes a major aspect of his character.

This chapter is also important as it introduces us Evangeline.Regard her

introduction with care. Here she is:

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Among the passengers on the boat was a young gentleman of fortune and family, resident in New Orleans, who bore the name of St. Clare. He had with him a daughter between five and six years of age, together with a lady who seemed to claim relationship to both, and to have the little one especially under her charge.

• Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl,—for she was one of those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer breeze,—nor was she one that, once seen, could be easily

forgotten.

• Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, without its usual chubbiness and squareness of outline. There was about it an undulating and aerial grace, such as one might dream of for some mythic and allegorical being. Her face was remarkable less for its perfect beauty of feature than for a singular and dreamy earnestness of expression, which made the ideal start when they looked at her, and by which the dullest and most literal were impressed, without exactly knowing why. The shape of her head and the turn of her neck and bust was peculiarly noble, and the long golden-brown hair that floated like a cloud around it, the deep spiritual gravity of her violet blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes of golden brown,—all marked her out from other children, and made every one turn and look after her, as she glided hither and thither on the boat. Nevertheless, the little one was not what you would have called either a grave child or a sad one. On the contrary, an airy and innocent playfulness seemed to flicker like the shadow of summer leaves over her childish face, and around her buoyant figure. She was always in motion, always with a half smile on her rosy mouth, flying hither and thither, with an undulating and cloud-like tread, singing to herself as she moved as in a happy dream.

Her father and female guardian were incessantly busy in pursuit of her,—but, when caught, she melted from them again like a summer cloud; and as no word of chiding or reproof ever fell on her ear for whatever she chose to do, she pursued her own way all over the boat. Always dressed in white, she seemed to move like a shadow through all sorts of places, without contracting spot or stain; and there was not a corner or nook, above or below, where those fairy

footsteps had not glided, and that visionary golden head, with its deep blue eyes, fleeted along.

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Chapter 15

• Since the thread of our humble hero’s life has now become interwoven with that of higher ones, it is necessary to give some brief introduction to them.

• Augustine St. Clare was the son of a wealthy planter of Louisiana. The family had its origin in Canada. Of two brothers, very similar in temperament and character, one had settled on a flourishing farm in Vermont, and the other became an opulent planter in Louisiana. The mother of Augustine was a Huguenot French lady, whose family had emigrated to Louisiana during the days of its early settlement. Augustine and another brother were the only children of their parents. Having inherited from his mother an exceeding delicacy of constitution, he was, at the instance of physicians, during many years of his boyhood, sent to the care of his uncle in Vermont, in order that his constitution might be strengthened by the cold of a more bracing climate.

• In childhood, he was remarkable for an extreme and marked sensitiveness of character, more akin to the softness of woman than

the ordinary hardness of his own sex. Time, however, overgrew this softness with the rough bark of manhood, and but few knew

how living and fresh it still lay at the core. His talents were of the very first order, although his mind showed a preference always

for the ideal and the æsthetic, and there was about him that repugnance to the actual business of life which is the common result

of this balance of the faculties. Soon after the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense and

passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon,—that

star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the figure,—he

saw and won the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He

returned south to make arrangements for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned to him by mail,

with a short note from her guardian, stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife of another. Stung to

madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done, to fling the whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort. Too proud

to supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of

the fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he

became the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and, of course, everybody

thought him a happy fellow.

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Augustine St. Clare’s indifference and his

marriage to an “evil” woman is justified in the previous quote.

• The wife functions as a foil both for St. Clare, Miss Ophelia and Evangeline. Evangeline

represent true Christian merits and the

emotional set up the audience is expected to

have.

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Here is an attempt by Stowe to approximate her novel to reality:

Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die, and that is the

end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not

die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and

important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying,

selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly called

living, yet to be gone through; and this yet remained to Augustine. Had

his wife been a whole woman, she might yet have done something—as

woman can—to mend the broken threads of life, and weave again into

a tissue of brightness. But Marie St. Clare could not even see that they

had been broken. As before stated, she consisted of a fine figure, a pair

of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and none of these

items were precisely the ones to minister to a mind diseased.

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19th Century Fiction II