Essay on Book Review: Masters of Small Worlds by Stephanie Mccurry

The anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe was written at a time when slavery was a largely common practice among Americans. It not only helped lay the foundation for the Civil War but also contained many themes that publicized the evil of slavery to all people. The book contains themes such as the moral power of women, human right, and many more. The most important theme Stowe attempts to portray to readers is the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. She makes it very clear that she does not believe slavery and Christianity can coexist and that slavery is against all Christian morals. She believes no Christian should allow the existence or practice of slavery.

During the nineteenth century America’s population saw its largest increase, in which mass immigration occurred. This saw an increase in culture and racial differences as movement was commonly based on those wanting to move away from war, starvation or other forms of oppression. It is how writers of the nineteenth century presented the ‘objective history through literature and turned it instead to the business of myth-making’ (Wardrop, 1997, p. P2) which is an interest of mine. My aim is to focus on the emergence and portrayal of women in sentimental fiction during the nineteenth century, through Coopers novel The Last of the Mochicans (Cooper, 1826) and Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe, 1999). The framework of my discussion will be

The sad part is that people that thought the men were the most important workers, but without the women none of the duties would have been finished. They served and equal role in making the plantation work and weren’t given the credit they deserved. Without the women staying in the house and looking after the children or cooking the meals, none of the men would have food or somewhere to sleep when they were done with their work. One can see that every duty should’ve been seen as equal. The women could do the same duties as the men and vice versa either way the duties are all needed to make the system work.

Politics in the United States has been since the beginning of political existence, intricate and convoluted just as it appears in Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil written by John Berendt. This extract from the novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil cultivates awareness through its use of language and generic conventions in giving an insight into the stratification of feudal society of Savannah, Georgia, in the South of America during the 1980s. The two main representations of this extract is the division between black people and white people, as well as the hierarchy of status in which white people are born into and unable to escape from.

First and foremost, Yeoman farmers and white poor southerners where not part of the “Plantation Aristocracy”. Slavery was a way to manage and control the labor, yeoman farmer families were about half of the southern white population and they did not own slaves, they did their own farming which about eighty percent of them owned their own land. Most of the farmers would raise hogs, corn, some cotton and tobacco and sell it to earn cash to be able to buy coffee, salt and sugar. Even though these farmers did not have money, they were able to gain the respect of planters by their dignity and pride and they even wished to join the gentry one day and looked up to the planters. According to the book U.S. A Narrative History (2015), “the farmers supported slavery because it was a means of controlling African Americans as members

I would describe the American South society between the years 1800 and 1860 in a multitude of different ways. From the decadent and luxurious lifestyles of the elite aristocrat planters in the upper south. This group were more concerned with their own social status among others within the elite group of planters. The market driven planters of the Lower South who grew cotton and other high valued crops, they were geared more towards capitalistic principles. And, to yeoman farmers who were usually tenants of the wealthier estates.

The author talks about how women made the men legitimized the male ego by making the man feel powerful to his wife, and if a wife did not go along with these ideals she would just have to deal with it. Why some southern women let the role of the husband get to this point Anne Scott a well renowned author and history professor at Duke University said, “Husbands were frequently referred to in words used for God: Lord and Master.” Which helped women to have a growing sense of self awareness. Anne Scott also wrote saying that many women supported slavery and others believing it to be cruel and unjust saying it was possible to draw a subconscious feeling of their own unequal status. There were two sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke from South Carolina, that wanted to break free from a southern women’s role and change the way they saw slavery and how women were

Yeomen farmers were farmers that cultivated their land with the aid of family members, and they could have also used a few slaves to assist with the labors of their work. Yeomen did not become a popular situation for people wanting to farm and have their own land for the most part until the 1860’s, in the south this social class of people was considered middle class. This is because Yeoman’s did not have large plots of land, nor did most have a lot of money to add to their farms. This idea came to America by the way of England where a yeoman really worked for others people of wealth in menial jobs that today’s standards would be considered degrading. Yeoman developed in early America from the idea of indentured servitude which

Since Christianity rests on the principle of universal love, no Christian should tolerate slavery. If all people were to put the principle into practice it would be impossible for the oppression and enslavement of one section of humanity. Throughout the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe has illustrated the fact that the system of slavery and principles of Christianity oppose each other. The novel exposes the evils of slavery—its incompatibility with Christian principles—and points the way to its transformation through Christian love through the characterization of some characters in the novel. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Christian principles of forgiveness, compassion, and belief in an afterlife is embodied though the character

Back in the eighteenth century, wealth combined with ethnicity, race, family, age, and gender to create social divisions known as “rank.” When social confusion happened in New York, authorities were driven to try to toughen the boundaries of traditional ranks. Through the courts` verdicts, Horsmanden had hoped to create a society in which there were “clear social distinctions between slaves, elite whites, indentured servants, free blacks, and free whites, as well as between men and women in all these categories.” These distinctions were

	The book discussed how one of the principle reasons as to how the white woman or mistress and the black women got along, depends on whether or not the slave women appeared to threaten the social status of the women. When the white men tried to rape the black women it made the white women socially look like nothing more than a slave. This made the white women feel forced to prove to the black women that power still remained in the white woman’s corner regardless of the master’s sexual desires. The mistresses made sure that the slave women understood that they valued less than any white women, for the main reason that the white woman had true power as long as the main wanted her. An example of this that I read would be when a white woman outwardly expressed that she worried mainly about her loss of power, not actually about marriage. Saphire, a fictional character that Gwin analyzes, says "...mainly concerned with her power... she views her husbands affections for a slave as an undercutting of her power over him in their relationship which. As the husband himself describes as, what makes her the master and him the miller." (pg 133) The slave that caused this upset usually received many beatings and unnecessary overworking of the slave. At the time, this treatment was not unheard of and needed, the white slave owners used it as an example to show all slaves that they were not worth the air they breath except in the fields.

During this century, women were reliant on men for much in life. Most states did not allow women to vote or own property. If a woman worked, the jobs were sparse and clearly defined: maid, nurse, seamstress, grade-school teacher. Marriage or inheritance were the only hopes women had for financial prosperity. Sadly, even in marriage, countless women were practically enslaved; not treated unkindly, nevertheless grouped into certain affairs and tasks. These enslavement sparked a movement in two women in particular; Harriet Beecher Stowe and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I can imagine their spirits chatting near the water well...

    What are the attitudes of the young Puritan husband Goodman Brown toward women, of the author toward women, of  other characters in the story toward women? This essay intends to answer that question.

It is extremely difficult for the modern reader to understand and appreciate Uncle Tom’s Cabin because Harriet Beecher Stowe was writing for an audience very different from us. We don’t share the cultural values and myths of Stowe’s time, so her novel doesn’t affect us the way it affected its original readers. For this reason, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been heavily scrutinized by the modern critic. However, the aspects of the novel that are criticized now are the same aspects that held so much appeal for its original audience.

While Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin overtly deals with the wrongs of slavery from a Christian standpoint, there is a subtle yet strong emphasis on the moral and physical strength of women. Eliza, Eva, Aunt Chloe, and Mrs. Shelby all exhibit remarkable power and understanding of good over evil in ways that most of the male characters in Stowe’s novel. Even Mrs. St. Claire, who is ill throughout most of the book, proves later that she was always physically in control of her actions, however immoral they were. This emotional strength, when compared with the strength of the male characters, shows a belief in women as equals to men (if not more so) uncommon to 19th century literature.