Contemporary Connections

      My experience of 2013 as compared to the book Uncle Tom's Cabin is that very similar to my personal synthesis. I am currently in my 3rd year of college as a mother and wife and luckily my hubby is very supportive of my choices to be independent. I wonder if that is what men are afraid of, that women will become to independent and wont need them any longer. If that is the case I know many women that already don't need a man. Though I know many men, mainly my father and grandpa who don't think that women should do anything other than take care of the children and the house. This makes for very interesting family gatherings, however since I have started my journey through the women's studies field and taught my father about all the things that I have learned he has come a long way in his beliefs. I think the fact that he has me for a daughter and can't not love me for me has helped some but what I like most is that I have inspired my stepmother to challenge my father's ideas of society. I think our society is beginning to view women as more equal to men but it hasn't been an easy battle. Now it is more socially acceptable for a woman to work or get an education in something other than a secretary. It's still an uphill battle for women to be viewed as equal and I think that they wont be viewed as equal until a woman holds the office of President. I think that is the only way women will be able to nip this power struggle in the butt once and for all.         
     While reading about the Bird's in Uncle Tom's Cabin I thought about the power and gender roles in their relationship. I think that for now in society we have a lot of married couples like them. Outside the home the man is in a powerful position but at home the woman knows how to take that power back. Him being a senator and all he has to have some power at work but as soon as he gets home Mrs.Bird knows him so well that she has the power stand up to him. Perhaps she has the power to sway his beliefs as well. She did get him to help Eliza. People always say behind a good man there stands a great woman. I ask why does she have to stand behind him? Why can't she stand beside him?

Literary Conversation

     While comparing gender roles of Uncle Tom's Cabin and A Streetcar Named Desire I noticed that women still contain a small amount of power but none compared to that of the men in these stories. For Uncle Tom's Cabin I think Eliza relates most to Stella, both women are in really bad circumstances of society. Also both of them have to take into account their children. However they do view their motherhood roles very differently. Eliza feels like she can't live without her son Henry but Stella seems like she can't live without her husband Stanley. She doesn't care to much about her son, at least there isn't much said about him in the play. It would appear the only place that Stella has any power what so ever is during the staircase scene when she attempts to leave Stanley. That is the only place through the play that she appears to have a choice for herself. The rest of the time it seems Stanley and Blanche make decisions for her or just assume that she will do whatever they want.
     Eliza seems to have more power than Stella and they are characters from two very different era's. Though Eliza was working against society she choose to go against the grain to save her son. I think that she is what society views as a great mother, a woman who will sacrifice herself for her child. Why is it more common to see a woman sacrifice for her child/ren than the father? For example the single mother, they have to work as both the masculine and feminine caretaker, provider and nurturer. Eliza had to be Henry's single parent for the majority of the book after Henry's father is sold. She risk's her life to save him from facing the same fate as his father.
     Though it seems society's view of women hasn't changed much over the era's between Uncle Tom's Cabin and A Streetcar Named Desire. In the Era of A Streetcar Named Desire white men where the Superior race and gender. Women did work while the men where away at war but as soon as the men returned, companies started making all these new fancy convenient machines for women such as the washer, stove and refrigerator. These where all to influence women to take their places back at the house. Society wanted to shift the balance of power back to male dominance, back to the June Cleaver, no speck of dust in the house household. To me Eliza and Stella are very different in their individual beliefs but similar as their societies view women.

Personal Synthesis

I see today and as well in this book that there are still SO many gender issues. Mainly that woman are perceived to never be capable of the power a man has. Today women still make less money doing the same thing as a man, women are still viewed as the weaker sex. For example we still have not had a woman president. The fact that we currently have a black president is amazing but it makes you wonder if our society will ever trust a woman with that kind of power. In Uncle Tom's Cabin aside from Eliza's getaway, the women believe that they can't have the same power as a man in the real world. They believe that there power over the man is at home. The Birds for instance. Mrs. Bird knew that her senator hubby wouldn't help Eliza if Eliza would have come during the day when someone could have seen her and damaged his reputation but Mrs. Bird also knew that since is was night that she could persuade him to help Eliza and Harry. There is also Mrs. Shelby who thinks that she can persuade her husband to not sell Harry so that Eliza never has to worry about it but in the end Mr. Shelby doesn't have a choice. In these two women I see many traits that my mother and one of my friends carry. Complete dependence on a man. If the women of this story don't comply with there husbands than they themselves could be out on there own. I guess that you could equate Bird and Shelby with the slaves though they didn't have it quite as bad. 
What irks me most though is that woman today still believe that they aren't competent without having a man in their life. One of my dearest friends marriage ended after twenty years and now she is afraid to do anything big because she always allowed him to make the large, more important decisions. Thank goodness my husband is a feminist or we would not be married anymore. There are more women in college today than men. To me this says that one day women will become more equal and speak our very intelligible minds just as men have done. It took many years for black people to overcome slavery and many say that they still are so I have faith that one day the women's movement will be so large that no one will have the chance to disparage it.

Multimedia Resources

I was reading through my weekly people magazine this week and came across an article about a man who does his best to get the wrongly convicted out of prison. So far he has gotten fifty people released. Of the fifty people who have been released thirty-one where black and three where female. So I decided to look this attorney up. Though he didn't start off as a lawyer he decided he needed to make a difference with his life. He spends all of his time actually re-investigating all these trials and crimes claimed against it's offenders. Though there isn't much about the race and gender of his clients online, in the article I found it to be quite apparent in the pictures of all fifty of them. I think that the thirty-one of the inmates that he set free were black because our system still doesn't recognize them as equal. We still have many biased people in occupations that can mean the difference between life and death, is this the kind of society that we want to let carry on?
This man's name is Jim McCloskey and he very much reminds me of Augustine St. Clair. Someone who recognizes that society is doing something wrong but does his best to make it right. St. Clair took time to get to know Tom just as Jim does with his clients. St. Clair tells Tom that he will free him but doesn't get the chance to because he is killed. I imagine that if Jim where in this time period he would have sought for Tom's freedom. I do wonder if Tom would have stayed free because he likely would go back to Aunt Chloe on the Shelby estate and I wonder if he would become their slave again of if they would treat him as an equal. I also wonder if Jim would have stopped with Tom. I was very moved by this story. Being a Social Work major I choose to make it my life work to help others. Not knowing what exact kind of social worker I want to be, this article gave me some kind of idea of yet another way I can do my part to change the way our society looks at others.

Reader Response

I read many reviews and picked three. The first is from a review of Uncle Tom's Cabin from Amazon. Over all this author does give the book a great review however I disagree with him on some levels. He discusses how vivid Stowe writes her characters and I don't disagree with him there. But he goes on to say that her female characters are so strong. This is the point were I disagree with him some, though many of the women in this book are strong I don't feel they are strong enough. I know that in the time period Mrs. Shelby and Mrs. Bird would have been considered strong to go against their husbands ideas but to me they aren't strong enough. I think Eliza is the only female in this story that is as strong as I see women in the present. Eliza reminds me of the many single mom's who sacrifice so much for their children, she reminds me of the women who stand up against things that are blatantly wrong for example violence against women, rape, racism, just to name a few. I am not saying that you have be self sacrificing to be a strong woman in my eyes, I am simply saying that I think if you aren't afraid to show what you stand for and believe in you are strong person in my eyes. Stowe did an amazing job bringing all her characters to life and I did enjoy reading this book.
The second review I read was by Tammy Carlton from Goodreads. She describes the book as one of her top five most important books ever read. She too had the same reaction as myself to Eliza. She describes "As long as I live, I will never be able to remove from my mind the vision of Eliza, panicked and frenzied, in the dead of the night with her baby boy in her arms, leaping across the frozen ice of the Ohio river to escape the trader her baby had been sold to."I too feel the same way. Though there are many influential women in this story, non as so as dear Eliza. Carlton continues with "I was involved in the book up to that point, but after that, this book owned me." I can very much agree. She does mention the dialect in review and that for me was very easy since I read Uncle Tom's Cabin with and audio book from YouTube. I would recommend it because if brings much more of the story to life.
The third review I read was from Barnes and Noble. It was submitted by someone anonymous and it is very short in length but a very powerful statement for a review of a book. This Anonymous person wrote "
I'm horrified and deeply troubled and haunted by the injustices done to poor Uncle Tom. After reading Uncle Tom I am ashamed slavery ever existed in the first place and people could treat others in such a cruel and dehumanizing way. I wont forget this book for as long as I live."  WOW! What an impact that made on me. I don't think I could have said it any better for myself. I think our whole society is ashamed that it ever happened and still continues today to try to make up for it. We are trying in the language we use to describe black people but I think it's also making us aware that slavery still exists in many different forms. This book as many layers of things that happen in America's past but if we open our eyes we will still see them today. It makes me wonder how I can make a change.
References
 Amazon. Amazon, 1 May 1999. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.amazon.com/review/
     R3GKW53UVJLURS/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R3GKW53UVJLURS>.
 Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble, 16 May 2006. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.
     <http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/uncle-toms-cabin-harriet-beecher-stowe/
     1100025188?ean=9780393933994>.
 Goodreads. Goodreads, 8 Sept. 2008. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.
     <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/
     46787.Uncle_Tom_s_Cabin#other_reviews>.

Critical Commentary

I choose the poem Eliza Harris by Frances Ellen Watkins (Harper) on page 525. It summarizes the sacrifice Eliza was willing to make to for Harry. the poem describes what it must have felt like to become a criminal by just the color of your skin. It also describes the sacrifice that she was willing to make to not let the white man take her son and turn him into a slave. The stanza that really is powerful to me is"With the rapture of love and fulness of bliss, She plac'd on his brow a mother's fond kiss:- Oh poverty, danger and death she can brave, For the child of her love is no longer a slave!" (UTC Pg. 527).  She would have been willing to die so that her son could live but she couldn't die in vein by letting her son defenseless against the white man. Though she was very close to being caught and facing death she drew on the strength of her love for her child to get him to safety. It just enforces that the male white supremacy was very strong. To this day we have it. There is still more racism and judgement out there that we care to admit. Overall this poem added to my understanding of the book. Understanding just how horrible it must have been for Eliza to risk her life and that of her child and bear unimaginable pain to carry him the whole way to freedom. I would like to think it is a pain and fear that I would bear had it been me. I think Eliza shows so much courage and strength to do something so risky for her time period. 
References
 Common Place. Common-place The Interactive Journal of Early American Life, 2004.
     Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-02/wood/>. 
 Southern Spaces. Lucinda MacKethan and Southern Spaces, 2004. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.
     <http://www.southernspaces.org/2004/
     plantation-romances-and-slave-narratives-symbiotic-genres>.
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, and Elizabeth Ammons. Uncle Tom's Cabin: Authoritative
     Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.
     Print.

Textual Background and Context

This image is an example of how black people (slaves) where treated. Auctioned off like cattle and advertised like a new washing machine by white, high society men. I chose this image because it reminds me of when the Shelby's sell Uncle Tom to Mr. Haley. The Shelby's do it reluctantly and with the intention of buying him back. However that intention diminishes quickly but Aunt Chlole takes up extra work to buy him back. It helps me understand Uncle Tom's Cabin more because it gives and insight to just how horrid white people treated their slaves and what they really thought of them. No one should be treated this way. White men should not have power over anyone, no man should. Every person should be in control of their own destiny. This article just enforces the white supremacy of the time. Where whit men where in charge of everything and women and black people where not allowed to live without living to serve a white man. These white men not only have power over their slaves but their wives as well. Though the wives all had their own opinions the man had the final say. For example when Eliza talks to Mrs.Shelby about over hearing the master talking to a trader about selling Harry. Mrs Shelby says "Nonsense, child! to be sure, I shouldn't." (UTC pg 9) when Eliza asks if Mrs. Shelby would consent to it. When Mrs. Shelby tells Mr. Shelby how she feels he says there is nothing he can do, he has to settle their debt. So ultimately women and black people had no choice but to listen to and take orders from the white man. 
References
Pintrest. Natalie Elise, Jan. 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://pinterest.com/
     pin/149041068889994160/>.