Literary Analysis

My chosen theme is Humanism and it is evident in both Uncle Tom's Cabin and Beloved. First with UTC, in Chapter 13, The Quaker Settlement and Chapter 14, Evangeline and Chapter 15, Of Tom's new mistress and other matters, Chapter 16, Tom's Mistress and her opinions and pretty much throughout the book there is human kindness splattered about. In Chapter 13, "Well, I hate those old slaveholders!" said the boy, who felt as unchristian as became any modern reformer. "I am suprised at you, son" said Simeon; "thy mother never taught thee so. I would do even the same for the slaveholder as for the slave, if the Lord brought him to my door in affliction". For Simeon and the other Quakers, kindness and passiveness is their nature. They are decent humans and show humanism to George, Eliza and Harry. In Chapter 14, Evangeline: St. Clare and Eva were discussing the fate of Tom and Eva was quite persistent in getting Tom. "What for, pussy? Are you going to use him for a rattlebox, or a rocking horse or what?" "I want to make him happy". "An original reason, certainly. Eva is the most unselfish child ever. In Chapter 17, The Freeman's defence George was reunited with his wife and child and Phinneas just got done telling them about what he heard. George was being sent back to Kentucky, probably to be killed, Eliza was being sold to New Orleans and Harry was going to a trader. George was eyeing the pistols and said "I will attack no man," said George. "All I ask of this country is to be let alone and I will go out peaceably; but-he paused, and his brow darkened and his face worked,-"I've had a sister sold in that New Orleans market. I know what they are sold for; and am I going to stand by and see them take my wife and sell her, when God has given me a pair of strong arms to defend her? No; God help me! I'll fight to the last breath, before they shall take my wife and son. Can you blame me?" That to me says a lot, earlier in the book he talked about dying before he would be sold to a cruel master. George would definately put himself first to save his family if he could. In Beloved, in Chapter 19, Sethe realized Beloved was her daughter. "Obviously the hand-holding shadows she had seen on the road were not Paul D., Denver and herself but Beloved, Denver and Sethe. And since it was so-if her daughter could come back home from the timeless place-certainly her sons could, and would, come back from wherever they had gone too." Sethe did a horrible, horrible thing in killing her baby daughter but she endured a horrible, horrible thing too and couldn't escape from any of it. She clearly did not want her children to endure from what she experienced with slavery. It was the only way she knew how to keep them safe. My next quote is from Chapter 26 when the African American women were coming to help Sethe and Denver rid the house on Bluestone Road of evil. "When they caught up with each other, all thirty, and arrived at 124, the first thing they saw was not Denver sitting on the steps, but themselves. Younger, stronger, even as little girls lying in the grass asleep." "The singing women recognized Sethe at once and surprised themselves by their absence of fear when they saw what stood next to her. The devil-child was clever, they thought. And beautiful. It had taken the shape of a pregnant woman, naked and smiling in the heat of the afternoon sun. Thunderblack and glistening, she stood on long straight legs, her belly big and tight. Vines of hair twisted all over her head. Jesus. Her smile was dazzling". "Standing alone on the porch, Beloved is smiling. But now her hand is empty. Sethe is running away from her, running, and she feels the emptiness in the hand Sethe has been holding. Now she is running into the faces of the people out there, joining them and leaving Beloved behind. Alone. Again. Then Denver, running too. Away from hher to the pile of people out there. They make a hill. A hill of black people, falling. And above them all, rising from his place with a whip in his hand, the man without skin, looking. He is looking at her". What I get from this is African Americans are very spiritual, ghost believing people and they believe people who die in a violent manner come back as ghosts. Benevolent and evil and maybe a little psychosis on Sethe's part. The way these books are similar is that having been slaves, their children are to be kept innocent and if they have to kill to protect them then so be it.