Thursday, November 14, 2019
Augustine St. Clare of Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Essay
 Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin leaves little room for interpretation of the author's moral point of view. Yet, there remains one big moral question that is not as easily answered. This is the question of the character of Augustine St. Clare--a man who espouses great ideals on the evils of slavery,  yet continues to hold his own slaves. Is he a hero because of his  beliefs or a villain because of his actions? And just how important is this question to understanding and responding to the novel, as a whole?            If St. Clare were a minor character, showing up in just a chapter or two, as another stereotype, i.e. the southern slaveholder who doesn't like slavery, he could almost be dismissed as just another interesting element, one more point of view, on the issue of slavery. But St. Clare dominates over one third of this book--his speeches are Stowe's mouthpiece for her abolitionist politics. He and his moral ambiguity cannot be dismissed. In many ways, St. Clare is at the very center of this book. Not just literally and chronologically, but morally.  Josephine Donovan calls St. Clare, "one of the most interesting characters in the novel" (79). Elizabeth Ammons goes even further and calls him "the most tortured white man in the book" (175). Here is a man who knows what is right and wrong, has the power to do something about it, but does not.            In many ways, St. Clare is like Thomas Jefferson, a man who spoke out for freedom, who espoused many ideals and even publicly criticized the institution of slavery, but continued to hold all of his slaves up until his death. Jefferson... ...           Uncle Tom's Cabin." Criticism 31.4 (Fall 1989): 383-400. Lang, Amy Schrager. "Slavery and Sentimentalism: The Strange Career of            Augustine St. Clare." Women's Studies 12.1 (1986): 31-54. Railton, Stephen. "Mothers, Husbands, and Uncle Tom." The Georgia            Review            38.1 (Spring 1984): 129-144. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the            Original Facts and Documents upon which the Story Is Founded.            London: Thomas Bosworth, 215 Regent Street, 1853. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly.                   Anthology of American Literature: Volume I: Colonial through                       Romantic. Ed. George McMichael. New York: Macmillan Publishing,            1993. 1735-2052. Â
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