"Uncle Tom's Cabin"
[XN many aspects "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" is not a good " novel. The long arm of coincidence is stretched a bit too far, and the people in the book have characters either very black or very white. But what interests the adult mind is the picture given of slavery in a "civilised " country less than a hundred
years ago. it is hard to believe that our grandparents lived in a time when human beings were bought and sold, when the ordinary human feelings were so little regarded that even tiny children were sold separately from their mothers, and whole , families were torn asunder, when :for a slight misdemeanour a slave might be flogged unmercifully, or cut across the face with
a@ horsewhip, when even young giris mignt De serit to the professional flogger to be " broken in." During the nineteenth century there was growing up all over the civilised world a recognition that this state of affairs was wicked and that slavery might have to be abolished. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher ran an abolitionist paper in Cincinatti, for which his sister, Harriet Beecher, sometimes wrote articles. She continued doing this even after she married Professor Stowe. Living in Cincinatti, Harriet was in the thick of controversy, for it was a border city. Her own State, Ohio, had abolished slavery, but just across the river -that river Emily so desperately crossed on the ice -was the slave State of Kentucky. Harriet must have known much of fugitive slaves during her 18 years in Cincinatti. "Uncle Tom’s Cabin," which appeared in 1852, was not propaganda, and you will notice that some of the slave owners are depicted as good, kind, Christian people, yet, as one critic said, "it crystallised the anti-slavery sentiment of the entire north." Published first as a serial, "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" came out in book form the same year, and within a year 300,000 copies were sold--‘ A Few Minutes with Women Novelists: Some American Writers-‘Harriet Beecher Stowe," Margaret Johnston, 2YA, January 11.)
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19410124.2.9.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 83, 24 January 1941, Page 5
Word count
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336"Uncle Tom's Cabin" New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 83, 24 January 1941, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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