Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A review
Disclaimer to whom it may concern: personally I don’t mind getting a feel of a book before I read it and often wish there were such reviews that hinted at more than hints. So this review might be filled with what you might call ‘spoilers’.
If you haven’t read the book and wish to do so and mind spoilers, go no further. And if you have read the book, then read on and see my perspective on one of the most prolific books I’ve ever read and reminisce on the beautiful narrative that is Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Uncle Tom’s cabin is a book that shook me to my roots. I usually cry at the end of a book or movie but this book had me holding back deep sobs intermittently throughout the book...when Evangeline died...when Augustine died with an unfulfilled promise that could have made a man live out the rest of his days serving as he had always done but as a free man. His death, while a very inconvenient plot to the main character of the story of whom the book had been named for, was altogether anticipated.
Uncle Tom’s cabin is not just a book with a plot woven out of the author's thoughts, it is a narrative of the many different stances on this long wish-to-be forgotten topic-slavery.
At the beginning of the book, there’s the Shelby’s- a proper southern family complete with the pious and devout wife who has convinced herself that her good works of educating and training the slaves on her estate are the best any woman can do to the hapless creatures. And her husband who seeks eternal redemption through the works of his wife.
My opinion of the male Shelby first made was that of a man stuck on a wall. He’ll be damned if he did and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t. What’s peculiar to his case was that he was perfectly content to be on that wall.
He had for a long time, discussed freedom with Tom his bond slave then turned around in less than a conversation time and sold him off to a fate one can only guess giving a less than convicting argument that he would purchase Tom back from whoever the unscrupulous trader sells him to.
We are introduced to the slave trader the same time the male Shelby makes his appearance. The trader’s character shed light on the people who through by no fault of theirs ( or maybe in one way or another it is their fault), seek to make a gain out of what is called profitable business even if that business is one that deals with fellow humans as though they were cattle with no thoughts or emotions.
The trader-whose name I quickly forgot was more or less the instrument of transportation for our gentle hero from his place of abode to his next owners. The trader believed he did what he did out of necessity with a very clear conscience that he dealt fairly with those who came under his care as human cargo thoroughly missing the point of the degradation and heart wrenching separation they suffered at his hand- mother and child, wives and husbands were torn apart by said trader in a method most cruel. For he took a child or wife while the mother or husband was otherwise occupied on another task and then informed the mother or husband in a reasonable tone how they had to go on without either their child or wife. This to me was the height of cruelty...the cruelty of not knowing it was the last chance to be together.
Then my favourite part of the book which I read with great trepidation as the book had yet to reach its middle pages and all seemed so well with Tom. I just knew the worst was yet to come...and yes it did come. But back to this part which features the St. Clare’s who luckily bought Tom off a ship. Augustine was a character I could put in my favourite list, but I hesitate because of his general lack of planning. As for direction, once upon a time, he did have one until he felt heavily in his heart that there was nothing he could do and so he did absolutely nothing but turned his sight whenever he could from the plight that assuaged his life. He reasoned the need for slaves on his estate but ensured their lives were one of tranquillity and general leisure.
An undertaken that greatly distressed his wife. Now his wife, Marie is my least favourite character. One would think I’d pick Legger who is a character yet to be revealed in this review, but no. Marie was such a detestable character I fairly wanted to smack her through the pages of the book. She came off as a world and universe of her own of which all things must revolve around.
Her obnoxious belief that the negro race had no emotions as they were to be likened to dogs or cattle was most discomforting, but she believed it so well that she wrenched her poor slave from the arms of her husband and four children to serve her in her new home with a careless order that the slave should start a new family. All argument made in favour of replacing the slave with another from her father’s house was met with rigid indifference and shock that anyone would think her slave felt the separation from her family.
Oh how I positively detested her and the fact her angel of a daughter Evangeline sought to please her was another harsh blow to my already bubbling pot of pure intense annoyance for Marie St. Clare. She says the most hurtful and insensitive things at the most inopportune of moments and seasons her jabbering talk with hysterics of being near death's door and being ailed by one sickness or another. She sickened me thoroughly. I once read as a quote that we hate what we see in ourselves reflected in others. To a degree, I might be Marie, but not to that extent and at the very least I acknowledge my wrongs.
Maybe I hate what I could have become if I wasn’t so self-reflecting.
The worst part about this character is her perchance for realising the value of something after it had been wrenched from her. And this also was used to perpetuate her feelings of long-suffering. Marie was really a trial to me.
Evangeline...her daughter was an angel. No words can be used to do justice to such a fair and sweet individual as she. I only implore you to read the book and see for yourself what goodness ought to be as I feel the author wanted us to know.
On her death bed, Evangeline made her father promise to release Tom. To which he did set to do but died a most inconvenient death and we see Tom yet again hanging between the precipice of known and unknown.
This time, no angelic Evangeline reached out to a father to purchase him for her. Instead, we are introduced to Legger.
I believe his character was set to show the very worst of humanity and to some extent, it did as I also believe the author was protecting the readers' sensibilities by not going in-depth to the true perversion of what took place on that monsters plantation.
Here, Tom dies and I really had to do a number on myself to keep from wailing and beating my hands across my chest. I love happy endings and the author at least provided it in a way for Tom and some minor characters whose story is interwoven with Tom’s. But I put more focus on those that struck a resounding chord with me.
Tom’s happy ending came by way of George Shelby, the younger Shelby who had promised Tom when he was leaving that he’d buy him back. It’s curious to me that a promise made by a child was kept while his father had written Tom off at being content wherever he was even though he had also promised he would buy Tom back. George however persevered and kept his promise even though he came at Tom’s dying side. It relieved Tom greatly that he had not been forgotten by his master’s and he died content that they had at least come for him. This is why he’s my favourite character right after Evangeline. It would surprise you to know Tom is my third favourite character in this book.
Overall, the author did a pretty neat job of outlining the horrors that is slavery albeit with our sensibilities in check and the different avenues people took to deal with it. From the Shelby’s to Legger, there were true and different reactions and actions to the people called coloured.
In ending, I’d say for a book written about black people by a white woman, it was filled with the hope that truly one-day slavery would see the last of days. Nowadays no one is quite sure if there is or isn’t. On my part, compared to what those who were shipped without thought or care to strange lands to work and die like cattle, I’ll say the authors dream has been realised...not to its full extent but to an extent where a black man can and has ruled over the very nation that enslaved his fellow race.
Negro, mulatto, quadroon...words that were spoken as insultingly as possible bear no brunt and is only spoken of by those whose minds are much limited in every way a man’s mind can be limited.
