"Uncle Tom's Cabin" very briefly
Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" summary for the reader's diary:
The main character, the black Uncle Tom, is a very pious and conscientious slave, he does not rebel against slavery, because it is approved by the Bible. He does not dare to escape, even knowing that he will be forever separated from his wife and children.
After all, if he runs away, his owner will have nothing to pay his debts with. Slave owner Shelby feels Tom's moral superiority and his own insignificance when he trades in living people, but calms his conscience (“everyone does it”).
Tom resignedly accepts his fate and waits for the “good master” to redeem him, but ultimately this resignation leads him to a painful death.
Other slaves - Eliza, George, Cassie, Emmeline - are deprived of such Christian feelings as Tom, and do everything to save themselves and their children from the yoke, fleeing to the “free states” at the first opportunity. Some slaves, unable to escape, commit suicide; others are beaten to death on plantations.
The novel shows the complete lack of rights of slaves, their dependence on their masters, who are either “kind” hypocrites like Shelby or sadists like Legree. Also, much attention is paid to the topic of religion.
A very short retelling
Negro Tom was a slave in the Shelby family, but the owner had to sell him to a slave trader, and with him one black boy, Harry. His mother, having learned about the deal, warned Tom, and she fled with the child to Canada. At the same time, her husband George, tortured by his owners, also escapes and joins his family.
Tom does not want to let his owners down and sets off with a party of other servants by steamer. On the road, he saves a drowning girl - Evangelina, the daughter of a wealthy gentleman. He buys Tom from the slave trader. In this family, the black man becomes the coachman and people become very attached to him. Only the mistress of the house, a cruel woman, treats him badly.
Some time later, Saint Clair was killed, and his daughter died of a serious illness. His widow sells her slaves. Tom ends up with a certain Legree, who treats slaves poorly. He wants to make Tom a supervisor, but his kindness evokes only positive emotions. Enraged by Tom's disobedience and the escape of the slaves, Legree orders him to be beaten. The dying black man is discovered by Mr. Shelby's son and buries him. Then he sets his slaves free, but does not touch the hut of the former slave Uncle Tom and leaves it as a memory.
A Condensed Retelling of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Summary of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Beecher Stowe:
The famous work of the American writer G. Beacher Stowe “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, created in 1852, raises issues of slavery throughout the world.
From the first pages of the novel we see that all the events take place in the early 1850s in the USA from a conversation between the planter Shelby and Gailey, who was selling slaves. Shelby expresses a great desire to sell her slave Uncle Tom to pay off his debts. But the greedy Galey also wants to sell Harry, the son of the housewife's maid.
The fate of this slave is tragic and unhappy. Her husband George Harris was also in captivity and worked on a nearby plantation. Their son Harry was their soul and joy, since two children died as infants.
One day, coming home from work, George told Eliza that his employer was forcing him to marry another woman, although they were already married. Upset by this news, the slave overheard Shelby talking about how their son had been sold. And Eliza’s husband persuades her to flee to Canada. She invites the old black man to run away too, but he refuses.
A real hunt begins for the fugitive, but the former maid successfully ends up in the house of Senator Brad, who opposed the slave trade. He helps this family hide with trusted people.
Tom is taken away from his old owner. Gailey, upon arrival in the city, buys several more slaves, and they go to the slave market. So Tom, along with other blacks, chained, floats on the lower deck of the ship. At the top are noble, white people who have been talking all the way about the rights of black people.
Everyone has a different opinion: some believe that it is easier for blacks to live in captivity than in freedom, others think that people with dark skin are destined to be slaves by the will of their fate. Reading the lines of the work, I am especially struck by the episode where, during one of the stops, a small child is torn from its mother and immediately sold for forty-five dollars. Out of hopelessness of the situation, the black woman throws herself into the water.
On the same ship sails the wealthy Mr. Saint-Clair with his sister Ophelia, an older woman who loves order in everything. She was going to her brother to help manage the house, since his wife was unwell.
Augustine St. Clair's daughter Eva was also with them. Tom really liked this sweet girl with a kind face. The black slave even saves her when she falls into the water. Due to these events, Tom is ransomed from Hayley and continues on to New Orleans.
Disputes often flared up between Augustine and Ophelia over the issue of slavery. The woman has always been against this existence of dark-skinned people. Saint Clair understood that such inequality should not exist, but he was not able to change the existing order. In order to somehow help Ophelia sort out her thoughts, he buys her a very young black woman as a servant, who suffered painful abuse from her former master.
So, Tom lived in this house for two years. During this time, many events happen: Eve dies, Ophelia begins to love slaves, and it seemed that freedom was already close, since the owner decided to set the old slave free. But, having died, he does not have time to carry out his plans, and Tom is sold to another owner.
Legree was very cruel, and for disobedience he beat him terribly. Here he meets the young slave Cassie, who told him her tragic fate. She manages to escape with another girl, Emmeline.
Having met George Harris's sister Eliza during their journey, they all go together to Liberia, where former slaves live. Tom is beaten, and his death was painful. But he never gave up the fugitive slaves. George Shelby, having arrived at Legree to ransom the old slave, does not make it in time. Tom's death shocked him so much that he sets all the slaves free and encourages them to lead a pious lifestyle.
The novel teaches us compassion, kindness and friendship between people of different nations.
The novel “Gone with the Wind” by American writer Margaret Mitchell was written in 1936. It tells the story of events in the southern states of the United States in the 1860s, during and after the Civil War. We recommend reading the summary of “Gone with the Wind” for the reader’s diary. A retelling of the novel will be useful for preparing for a literature lesson.
Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary
The novel The Grapes of Wrath was first published in 1939 and immediately brought John Steinbeck widespread popularity. Almost immediately it was translated into many languages of the world, including Russian.
The ballet begins with Siegfried and his friends celebrating his coming of age with charming girls. In the midst of the fun, the mother of the hero of the day appears and reminds the guy that his single life ends today
In his story, the author tells us stories from the life of a small dog of the Fox breed, Mickey. The story is divided into twelve parts, each of which reveals to us the life of a dog from a new side.
Source
The sad news of Tom's separation from his family takes his wife Chloe and their children by surprise.
The slave trader Gailey, who has just bought Tom, is angrily and emotionally discussed by the family.
Let's see how different thoughts and approaches to the current situation are.
- Being in hell for him is like nothing! - said little Jake.
“That’s where he belongs,” Aunt Chloe confirmed gloomily.
- How many hearts are bleeding because of him!.. - This one should burn in eternal fire! Isn't it true? - Andy said.
- I wish I could admire how it will be! - Jake exclaimed.
And then Tom intervenes gently but convincingly:
“Eternity is a terrible word, my children. You can’t even think about her without horror. Eternal torment! You can’t wish this on anyone.”
Didn’t Elder Silouan of Athos, for example, say the same thing almost word for word about the eternity of torment of sinners?
But more often than not, the feeling of love for enemies inevitably gives way to a more mundane, but quite natural human sense of justice, which the Bible also testifies to, for example, in many psalms.
As this is expressed, in particular, by Tom’s wife:
“Nature itself is crying out against them,” said Aunt Chloe. - Don’t they sell babies, don’t they tear them from their mother’s breast? And older children are also sold, they cry, cling to their mother’s skirt, and these monsters, no matter what, will be taken away from their mother and sold. Didn’t they have to separate the wife from the husband?.. -
The Holy Scripture says: pray for your enemies, said Uncle Tom.
— Pray for your enemies? - Aunt Chloe exclaimed. - No! I can't do this. I can't pray for them! —
You say, Chloe, “nature itself cries out against them.” Yes, nature is strong in us, but the mercy of the Lord will overcome it too. Just think what kind of soul he has, this man, and thank God that he created you differently.
Let them sell me ten more times, just so I don’t have his sins on my conscience!
Yes, at least, it’s better to honestly admit to ourselves: which of us can truly pray for our enemies with faith that the grace of God will overcome our own nature?
There are very few of them... But there are many more of those who try to cover their nakedness with lofty rhetoric and quotes from the Gospel, isn’t it?
Chloe does not do this, but from the excess of her heart she rebels and rebels in her soul:
- Submit to the will of God! How can one be submissive? I wish I knew where they will take you, what hands you will fall into! The missus says: we’ll buy it out in two years. Dear Lord, can they ever return from there? People are tortured to death there! I heard what they do with them on these plantations! —
The Lord is omnipresent, Chloe, he will not leave me there either. —
He is omnipresent, but sometimes terrible things happen at His will,” said Aunt Chloe. - And with this you want to console me!
The sins of some people inevitably push the sins of others: although temptations are inevitable in the world, woe to those through whom they come.
That is why, among other sufferers from slavery, ordinary embitterment is born, coupled with unbelief, as, for example, in the runaway slave George Harris, who decided to achieve freedom at any cost, even his own life.
While fleeing, he meets his former benefactor, the owner of the factory, and between them, among other things, the following exchange takes place:
- George, be calm. But I believe that you will not die! Take courage, do not lose heart and trust in the Lord God! I wholeheartedly...
- Is there really a God?! - George exclaimed with despair in his voice, interrupting the old man mid-sentence. “I have experienced so much in my life that I no longer believe in Him.” You white people don't know what life is like for us. If God exists, then only for you, and we - do we really feel His hand over us?
We often hear something similar these days: it’s good, they say, to believe in God when your thoughts are not occupied only with the search for daily bread for the basic survival of the family. And when everything is devoted only to this, there is no strength left for anything else, neither for prayer, nor for thinking about God and His benefits, about the meaning of life. Moreover, life itself then seems like an absurd toy, thrown at the will of various unpredictable circumstances.
Of course, for some people, various unfavorable living conditions can serve as self-justification for their persistence in unbelief.
But who in this case can say this about the same George?.. In general, the formulation of the problem of theodicy appears in this novel with frankly expressed simplicity.
The best heroes of the novel do not linger in this world, which lies in evil, and perish, and evil often does not encounter any obstacles to its implementation.
And yet the novel is inherently life-affirming and optimistic, even if this optimism is mixed with bitterness and tragedy.
Tom's new owner is the wealthy aristocrat Augustin Saint-Clair with his charming daughter Evangelina. Saint-Clair at first appears as if he were a skeptic, influenced by the ideas of the French Enlightenment. But it soon turns out that underneath his outer disbelief and opposition to official religiosity hides a sensitive, kind, loving and conscientious heart.
His wife Marie is the complete opposite: devout, diligently attending Sunday services, and at the same time extremely self-centered in her whims and suspicions.
Like, no one understands her painful suffering and deep feelings, but blacks - are they capable of anything like that? And in general, how can you compare her feelings and the feelings of blacks, who, moreover, are all so selfish!
One Sunday, the following conversation arises between Marie and her husband.
Marie admires the preacher in the church who argued that all distinctions in society were created by the will of God, that the distinction between masters and slaves is fair, for some are destined from birth to command and others to obey.
It is useless to argue against slavery, since the arguments in its defense given in the Bible are so convincing!
No, please! - said St. Clair. “I could just as easily get what you’re talking about from the newspapers, and also smoke a cigar, which is not allowed in church.” … Imagine for a moment,” he said another time, “that the price of cotton for some reason fell once and for all and slavery becomes a burden for us.” Be sure that the interpretation of biblical texts will change accordingly!
The Church will not be slow to see the truth, calling on common sense and the Bible for help.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Man is like a cog Unfortunately, it has often happened in history that church preachers, guided by purely earthly interests, voiced what certain groups of people, especially the powerful, wanted to hear from them, instead of a truthful and impartial word.
And this applied not only to slave-owning America, but also to Russia with its serfdom.
Demagogically using the text of the Holy Scriptures, making “cuts” of quotes, you can justify anything. But on the issue of slavery, as St. Clair says, there cannot be two opinions:
The planters who get rich from this, the priests who please the planters, and the politicians who see slavery as the basis of their power, can be as sophisticated as they like, use all their eloquence and refer to the Gospel, but the truth will remain the truth: the system of slavery is a creation the devil and serves as the best proof of what this gentleman is capable of.
However, the problem does not necessarily lie in slavery. The world of early capitalism in its development was sometimes no less harsh and inhuman.
If a slave owner could destroy a family by selling children, then a capitalist with no less success, dismissing the breadwinner from work, doomed his household to a life of hand to mouth, or even starvation.
So the Marxist movement was at one time a very reasonable and natural reaction to the existing class differences.
In a broader sense, disguised forms of slavery arise whenever people who have more power and strength seek to use those who have less as a means, as a function, as cogs in some machine, and consider them solely from the point of view of their utility. in the implementation of their projects.
As living individuals, these “cogs” can be of interest to those in power only to a minimum, that is, insofar as they work in this running mechanism. And if they wear out for some reason, as you know, there are no irreplaceable parts...
People who do not fit into this established and well-functioning mechanism of relationships often do not stay long in its system. They either voluntarily sacrifice themselves, or they are mysteriously sacrificed by Providence itself, sometimes through the uprising of the forces of evil, so that it seems that the good providence of God is once again defeated.
A small and fragile girl, Evangelina, dies of tuberculosis.
But how much she had already managed to console the oppressed in the last years of her life! —
Mom, are these diamonds expensive?
- Of course! Dad ordered them for me from France. This is a fortune.
“How I wish they were mine,” said Eve, “and that I could do whatever I want with them!” —
What would you do with them?
“I would sell it, buy an estate in the free states with this money, move all our blacks there, hire teachers to teach them to read and write...
Even if these global plans were not destined to come true, she became immeasurably more convincing as an evangelist of love and freedom, which she longed to bestow on all the tormented servants, than many thousands of certified Christian missionary preachers of that time.
Here, her peer, the black woman Topsy, like some kind of stone, was hardened by cruel torture from her previous owners. And she was no longer afraid of anyone or anything.
But Eva managed to melt her hardened heart:
“Don’t you love anyone, Topsy?”
“But I don’t know what it’s like—they love me.” To love lollipops and all sorts of sweets is understandable,” answered Topsy.
- But you love your father and mother?
- I didn’t have them. I told you about this, Miss Eva.
“Yes, really,” she said sadly.
- But maybe you had friends, sisters...
- I don’t have anyone - I don’t and never had one.
Uncle Tom's Cabin.....
Evangelina bestowed this love on a girl who had never known what love was and saved her soul, including at the cost of her own health and, ultimately, life.
Her death transformed the savage Topsy.
“First love, then preaching,” as the great Russian missionary, Archbishop Nicholas of Japan taught.
“After all, the Bible says that you need to love everyone,” Evangelina argued. True, she received a completely pragmatic answer to this from her cousin:
“Well, in the Bible... It says a lot of things, but who would think to do it?”
And after Evangelina, Saint Clair soon leaves this life.
Trying to separate those fighting in a cafe and take away a knife from one of them, he dies from this very knife...
His plans to free all his slaves were interrupted without coming to fruition, and his widow Marie immediately sold all the blacks, including Tom, at auction.
Only the girl Topsy was lucky, because her cousin St. Clair took her in advance.
Five Generations of Slaves, South Carolina
Uncle Tom's Calvary
AND
Here comes the last stage of his life for Tom. He ends up with the cruel planter Legree in a remote desert wilderness, from where he does not return. Damned places, a God-forgotten region - these are not empty words at all!
Tom was heartbroken for the unfortunate people around him and tried to somehow alleviate their suffering...
At first these pitiful creatures, who had almost lost their human appearance, did not understand Tom, but week after week, month after month, and finally long-silent strings began to speak in their hearts.
A silent, full of patience, incomprehensible man, who was always ready to help another, without demanding help for himself, was always content with the least and shared this little with those who needed more than him, a man who, on cold nights, gave up his torn blanket to some a sick woman, and in the field he put cotton in baskets for the weak, not fearing that he himself would be underweight - this man little by little gained a strange power over them.
Now let’s compare these lines with a narrative from a century later, and this happened not on the hot southern plantations of the USA, but in Stalin’s camp in the north of the USSR in the bitter frosty cold:
“Two bedridden patients received only half of their rationed bread from lunch, and Father Arseny hid a piece of rancid cod from himself in his bosom. Arriving at the barracks, Father Arseny began to feed the sick: he heated water with pine needles, added aspirin and gave them both something to drink. He divided the bread and cod in half and gave it to everyone.
Five days later the patients began to recover, it became clear that they would remain alive, but they still lay motionless and could not take a step.
All this time, Father Arseny looked after them in fits and starts and at night and shared part of his rations... The patients received Father Arseny’s care coldly, but they could not do without him, and if it weren’t for him, they would have been lying in the frozen ground for a long time.”...
But the more Tom helps the suffering slaves, supporting them, the more hatred and rage he arouses in the planter Legree, the sooner the hour of his Golgotha approaches.
The passion for dominating others, especially those who are higher and better, is so irrational in ordinary individuals that it does not stop before the arguments of common sense. It would seem that in a purely practical sense, Tom is a valuable worker, a jack of all trades, efficient, obedient, not shying away from the most menial work, such people must be protected!
But the unbridled spirit of lust seeks to conquer both the soul and the will of such subordinates in order to break them at any cost, to force them to act against their own conscience...
Tom turned out to be truly a “stone of faith” here:
- Oh, you saint! Have you decided to teach us sinners? Have you forgotten what is written in the Bible? “Servants, obey your masters.”
Who is your master? I! Who paid twelve hundred dollars for you, the dog? You are now mine, both in soul and body!
- And Legree hit Tom with his boot as hard as he could.
But these words awakened jubilant joy in Tom's tormented heart. He straightened up and, raising his face, stained with tears and blood, to the sky, exclaimed:
- No, no, master! No amount of money can buy my soul! You have no control over her!
However, in scum like Legree, it inflames even more base passions, and Tom dies.
But the memory of the light that Tom spread around him continues to live in the hearts of those who knew him. She moves his younger friend George Shelby, the son of Tom’s first owner, like many of his contemporaries, to the main goal - to end once and for all this shame of slavery in which America is mired.
But it was not over immediately, if not legally, then in the minds and hearts of many Americans: just remember a century later the example of Martin Luther King...
“Blessed are the peacemakers” - and Tom is truly an evangelical peacemaker. But the creation of the world is often inevitably associated with sacrifice.
Some of Beecher Stowe's contemporaries and critics, trying to somehow downplay the significance of her novel, called it "sentimental."
But in fact, this book is spiritually sober, far from any sentimentalism.
“Negro Auctions and Sales” is a sign above the stock exchange in Atlanta, Georgia.
Summary of the novel
The novel begins with a conversation between the slave trader Gailey and Mr. Shelby, a large planter who is forced to sell his best slave, the black Tom. The slave trader also wants to get the boy Harry, the son of dark-skinned Eliza, who works in the family of a maid. At the same time, Gailey cynically argues that this should not be done in front of the mother, because “the goods will spoil from this.”
Eliza's husband worked on a nearby plantation. Previously, he worked in a factory and showed himself to be quite good, but his owner did not tolerate the inner independence and self-confidence of a black man and created unbearable conditions for George. Their two firstborns died, and now Eliza worries about the baby. On the same day, her husband came to her and said that he was planning to run away: the owner found him a wife, despite the fact that his marriage with Eliza was sanctified by the church.
After the bills of sale have been signed, Mr. Shelby informs his wife of the transaction. Eliza hears this and shares the information with Tom. She is about to run away with the child and calls him. But he is ashamed to let his owner down.
Her disappearance becomes known the very next day. Eliza crosses the ice to Ohio, where slavery is punishable by law. She was sheltered by a certain Baird, a senator who did not share the ideas of slavery. Gailey, who missed the blacks, meets with hunters of runaway black slaves and asks them for help. He himself takes Tom out of the former owner’s house. The owner's son George gives him a silver coin as a souvenir and promises that he will never traffic people.
In the city, Gailey buys several more slaves, separating mothers from their children. He loads all the blacks onto a ship and sends them to the American South. All white gentlemen travel on the upper deck. Below, in extremely poor conditions, blacks are housed. In one of the ports, Gailey buys a dark-skinned woman with a child, whom she sells secretly from her mother. Having learned about this, the slave throws herself overboard out of grief.
Mr. St. Clair is traveling on the same flight with his little daughter Eva. Tom watched her with genuine interest, because he loved children. The girl leaned over unsuccessfully, could not resist and fell overboard. Without hesitation, Tom rushes after her and saves her. The grateful father immediately buys Tom from Gailey.
The boat trip marked the beginning of a great friendship
Augustin St. Clair lives with his family in New Orleans. The farm on his plantation is run by his sister Ophelia, a strict, pragmatic woman with iron principles. Augustin's wife Marie is very eccentric and selfish. She approves of slavery, moreover, she treats servants cruelly.
And Eliza's family is waiting for the right moment to escape to Canada. John joins them. He has lived in Canada for quite some time, but he had to return for his mother. However, hunters for fugitive slaves and the police found out their hiding place. During the shootout, the fugitives wound one of their pursuers.
Augustin gives his cousin a little black girl, Topsy, as a gift. Her fate is very difficult - her former owner beat her. Topsy turned out to be a smart baby, and Ophelia took up raising her.
It soon turned out that Eva was terminally ill. During this time, the girl became attached to Uncle Tom. She asks her father to release him after she dies. Augustin makes a promise, but does not have time to fulfill it - he dies from a knife blow.
After the death of her husband, his wife takes control of the farm. She puts the estate and all the servants up for sale. Tom ends up on the plantation of Simon Legree, whose slaves live in shabby shacks in cramped conditions, sleep on straw and eat extremely poorly. Legree's mistress, the young mulatto Cassie, helps the slaves. One day she comes to Tom to lubricate his wounds after he was severely beaten by his master for refusing to become an overseer.
Cassie is the daughter of a rich plantation owner and a slave, but before his death, her father does not have time to issue her freedom. She became the property of one man, whom she fell in love with and even bore him children. But he was forced to sell the girl to pay off his debts. So she moved from one plantation to another.
Legree, believing that Tom is involved in this matter, beats him to death. In the last hours of his life, George Shelby appears at the estate. He buries Tom, and upon returning home he sets his slaves free.
