Black and White Masculinity in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Black and White Masculinity in Uncle Tom's Cabin PDF Author: Lisa Cramer
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656688834
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Document from the year 2014 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim (Anglistisches Seminar, International Cultural Studies), course: Sugar: Culture of Capitalism and Slavery, language: English, abstract: Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most influential literary work with regard to the discussion of slavery of the 18th and 19th century America. In her novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe aims to draw society’s attention to the inhumanity of its system with the help of the novel’s protagonist, Uncle Tom, and various other characters, both black and white. In so doing, she presents different types of femininity and masculinity which help to point out the nature of the system of slavery. Generally speaking, women in Beecher Stowe’s work present abolitionist ideas stating the evil of the system whereas the depiction of male characters is more complex. This paper seeks to examine the types of masculinity in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, distinguishing between good and bad, black and white masculinity embodied in the characterization of the characters. Masculinity has always been associated with physical strength and muscles, toughness and power but most of all courage. This paper, however, will not only address masculinity as such but will also show that masculinity is courage by softness and religious faith. Harriet Beecher Stowe disguises variations of masculinity in her characters: Bad white masculinity is depicted in the behavior of the plantation owner Simon Legree in contrast to the Kentuckian Mr. Shelby and Mr. Augustine St. Clare from New Orleans who imply good white masculinity. The latter two may depict an intermediate position between bad white and black masculinity presented by the slaves Uncle Tom and George Harris. Since Uncle Tom’s Cabin is considered to be a novel in favor of the abolition of slavery, black masculinity is unlikely to be presented badly. This paper therefore focuses on the above-mentioned characters and how they present different types of masculinity, also in relation to how they treat other human beings.

Black and White Masculinity in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Black and White Masculinity in Uncle Tom's Cabin PDF Author: Lisa Cramer
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656688834
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 20

Get Book Here

Book Description
Document from the year 2014 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim (Anglistisches Seminar, International Cultural Studies), course: Sugar: Culture of Capitalism and Slavery, language: English, abstract: Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most influential literary work with regard to the discussion of slavery of the 18th and 19th century America. In her novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe aims to draw society’s attention to the inhumanity of its system with the help of the novel’s protagonist, Uncle Tom, and various other characters, both black and white. In so doing, she presents different types of femininity and masculinity which help to point out the nature of the system of slavery. Generally speaking, women in Beecher Stowe’s work present abolitionist ideas stating the evil of the system whereas the depiction of male characters is more complex. This paper seeks to examine the types of masculinity in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, distinguishing between good and bad, black and white masculinity embodied in the characterization of the characters. Masculinity has always been associated with physical strength and muscles, toughness and power but most of all courage. This paper, however, will not only address masculinity as such but will also show that masculinity is courage by softness and religious faith. Harriet Beecher Stowe disguises variations of masculinity in her characters: Bad white masculinity is depicted in the behavior of the plantation owner Simon Legree in contrast to the Kentuckian Mr. Shelby and Mr. Augustine St. Clare from New Orleans who imply good white masculinity. The latter two may depict an intermediate position between bad white and black masculinity presented by the slaves Uncle Tom and George Harris. Since Uncle Tom’s Cabin is considered to be a novel in favor of the abolition of slavery, black masculinity is unlikely to be presented badly. This paper therefore focuses on the above-mentioned characters and how they present different types of masculinity, also in relation to how they treat other human beings.

Gender and Race in Antebellum Popular Culture

Gender and Race in Antebellum Popular Culture PDF Author: Sarah N. Roth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107043689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
In the decades leading to the Civil War, popular conceptions of African American men shifted dramatically. The savage slave featured in 1830s' novels and stories gave way by the 1850s to the less-threatening humble black martyr. This radical reshaping of black masculinity in American culture occurred at the same time that the reading and writing of popular narratives were emerging as largely feminine enterprises. In a society where women wielded little official power, white female authors exalted white femininity, using narrative forms such as autobiographies, novels, short stories, visual images, and plays, by stressing differences that made white women appear superior to male slaves. This book argues that white women, as creators and consumers of popular culture media, played a pivotal role in the demasculinization of black men during the antebellum period, and consequently had a vital impact on the political landscape of antebellum and Civil War-era America through their powerful influence on popular culture.

Uncle

Uncle PDF Author: Cheryl Thompson
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770566317
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
From martyr to insult, how “Uncle Tom” has influenced two centuries of racial politics. Jackie Robinson, President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, O.J. Simpson and Christopher Darden have all been accused of being an Uncle Tom during their careers. How, why, and with what consequences for our society did Uncle Tom morph first into a servile old man and then to a racial epithet hurled at African American men deemed, by other Black people, to have betrayed their race? Uncle Tom, the eponymous figure in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sentimental anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was a loyal Christian who died a martyr’s death. But soon after the best-selling novel appeared, theatre troupes across North America and Europe transformed Stowe’s story into minstrel shows featuring white men in blackface. In Uncle, Cheryl Thompson traces Tom’s journey from literary character to racial trope. She explores how Uncle Tom came to be and exposes the relentless reworking of Uncle Tom into a nostalgic, racial metaphor with the power to shape how we see Black men, a distortion visible in everything from Uncle Ben and Rastus The Cream of Wheat chef to Shirley Temple and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson to Bill Cosby. In Donald Trump’s post-truth America, where nostalgia is used as a political tool to rewrite history, Uncle makes the case for why understanding the production of racial stereotypes matters more than ever before.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin PDF Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description


The American Plutarch

The American Plutarch PDF Author: Russell M. Lawson
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Creating an unconventional portrait of the life and thought of an Enlightenment historian and scientist, this study focuses upon Jeremy Belknap's letters, journals, and essays, which provide a clear sense of how a dialogue with the past can yield an appreciation of life and acceptance of self. Author of the three volume History of New Hampshire and the two volume American Biography, Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798) was the American Plutarch because he used the past to learn more about his own life and the lives of others. He experienced the past vicariously through his imagination and experientially through his journeys throughout New England in search of clues to the explanation of the natural and human past of America. The book is built around Belknap's engaging correspondence with his friend Ebenezer Hazard, as well as Belknap's own travel journals of his expeditions to upstate New York and throughout New Hampshire. His journey to the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1784 was the climax of his active inquiry into the past. Far from a dry, historiographical account, this study provides a fluid and descriptive narrative of Belknap, his journeys, and his times. This is a unique portrayal of human nature in general and 18th century society in particular.

Mightier Than the Sword

Mightier Than the Sword PDF Author: David S Reynolds
Publisher: WW Norton
ISBN: 9780393342352
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
“Fascinating . . . a lively and perceptive cultural history.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, The New Yorker In this wide-ranging, brilliantly researched work, David S. Reynolds traces the factors that made Uncle Tom’s Cabin the most influential novel ever written by an American. Upon its 1852 publication, the novel’s vivid depiction of slavery polarized its American readership, ultimately widening the rift that led to the Civil War. Reynolds also charts the novel’s afterlife—including its adaptation into plays, films, and consumer goods—revealing its lasting impact on American entertainment, advertising, and race relations.

Playing the Race Card

Playing the Race Card PDF Author: Linda Williams
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691201331
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
The black man suffering at the hands of whites, the white woman sexually threatened by the black man. Both images have long been burned into the American conscience through popular entertainment, and today they exert a powerful and disturbing influence on Americans' understanding of race. So argues Linda Williams in this boldly inquisitive book, where she probes the bitterly divisive racial sentiments aroused by such recent events as O. J. Simpson's criminal trial. Williams, the author of Hard Core, explores how these images took root, beginning with melodramatic theater, where suffering characters acquire virtue through victimization. The racial sympathies and hostilities that surfaced during the trial of the police in the beating of Rodney King and in the O. J. Simpson murder trial are grounded in the melodramatic forms of Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Birth of a Nation. Williams finds that Stowe's beaten black man and Griffith's endangered white woman appear repeatedly throughout popular entertainment, promoting interracial understanding at one moment, interracial hate at another. The black and white racial melodrama has galvanized emotions and fueled the importance of new media forms, such as serious, "integrated" musicals of stage and film, including The Jazz Singer and Show Boat. It also helped create a major event out of the movie Gone With the Wind, while enabling television to assume new moral purpose with the broadcast of Roots. Williams demonstrates how such developments converged to make the televised race trial a form of national entertainment. When prosecutor Christopher Darden accused Simpson's defense team of "playing the race card," which ultimately trumped his own team's gender card, he feared that the jury's sympathy for a targeted black man would be at the expense of the abused white wife. The jury's verdict, Williams concludes, was determined not so much by facts as by the cultural forces of racial melodrama long in the making. Revealing melodrama to be a key element in American culture, Williams argues that the race images it has promoted are deeply ingrained in our minds and that there can be no honest discussion about race until Americans recognize this predicament.

Father Henson's Story of His Own Life

Father Henson's Story of His Own Life PDF Author: Josiah Henson
Publisher: Boston : J.P. Jewett ; Cleveland : H.P.B. Jewett
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Father Henson's Story of His Own Life is an autobiographical account of the life of Josiah Henson, an African American man who was born into slavery in Maryland in the late 18th century. Henson's story is a testament to the resilience and strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Despite being subjected to the cruelty of slavery, Henson was able to escape and establish himself as a respected member of the free black community in Canada. The book chronicles Henson's life from his early years as a slave on a plantation to his eventual escape to freedom. Along the way, Henson describes the various hardships he faced, including the separation from his family, the brutal treatment of his fellow slaves, and the constant threat of violence from his white masters. Despite these challenges, Henson was able to maintain his faith and his determination to be free.Henson's story is also a valuable historical document that sheds light on the realities of slavery in the United States. Through his vivid descriptions of plantation life, Henson gives readers a glimpse into the brutal and dehumanizing nature of the institution. He also provides insight into the various strategies that slaves used to resist their oppressors, including acts of rebellion and escape.Overall, Father Henson's Story of His Own Life is a powerful and inspiring account of one man's journey from slavery to freedom. It is a testament to the resilience and strength of the human spirit, and a valuable historical document that sheds light on the realities of slavery in the United States.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin PDF Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393059465
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Presents an annotated version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that describes the lives of slaves and abolitionists in the 1800s, historical discussions of the Underground Railroad, slave trade, and plantation life, and advertisements that were influenced by the novel.

Marginalized Masculinities

Marginalized Masculinities PDF Author: Chris Haywood
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351858688
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Across Europe we are witnessing a series of events that are drawing upon representations of men and masculinity that are rupturing the social fabric of everyday life. For example, media reports of social unrest, misogynous hate crime, religious extremism, drug trafficking and political Far Right mobilization often have been at the centre of the discussion the figure of the apathetic, disenchanted, socially excluded young man. Marginalized Masculinities explores how men in precarious positions in different countries and social contexts understand and experience their masculinities, focusing on men who are viewed as being marginal in a range of fields in society including the family, work, the media and school. By focusing on atypical or marginal masculinities in each subfield, Haywood and Johansson provide an informed understanding of what it means to experience marginalization. Indeed, within this enlightening volume the chapters engage with the issue of whether it is necessary to name ‘a’ dominant masculinity in order to make sense of and understand the nature of marginalized masculinity. This insightful title will be of interest to researchers, undergraduates and postgraduates interested in fields such as Gender Studies, International Studies, Comparative Studies and Men Studies.