Augustine St. Clare of Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Essay

Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms confine leaves little room for interpretation of the authors honourable point of view. Yet, there remain one big moral question that is not as intimately 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 entertain his own slaves. Is he a hero because of his beliefs or a baddie because of his actions? And just how important is this question to understanding and responding to the novel, as a all? If St. Clare were a minor character, showing up in just a chapter or two, as another stereotype, i.e. the southern slaveholder who doesnt same(p) slavery, he could almost be dismissed as just another enkindle element, one more point of view, on the issue of slavery. But St. Clare dominates everyplace one third of this book--his speeches are Stowes mouthpiece for her abolitionist politics. He and his moral ambiguity cannot be dismissed. In many ways, St. Clare is at the very decoct of this book. Not just literally and chronologically, but morally. Josephine Donovan calls St. Clare, one of the most enkindle characters in the novel (79). Elizabeth Ammons goes yet further and calls him the most tortured smock man in the book (175). Here is a man who knows what is in effect(p) 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 Toms Cabin. Criticism 31.4 (Fall 1989) 383-400. Lang, Amy Schrager. Slavery and Sentimentalism The Strange Career of Augustine St. Clare. Womens 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 Toms Cabin Present ing the Original Facts and Documents upon which the Story Is Founded. London Thomas Bosworth, 215 powerful Street, 1853. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Toms Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly. Anthology of American Literature Volume I compound through Romantic. Ed. George McMichael. New York Macmillan Publishing, 1993. 1735-2052.