Only the Good Die Young

Being one of the most renowned books regarding the topic of slavery, I thought Uncle Tom's Cabin would be a lot more violent and paint a much uglier picture of the society of the time. However, as I reached the end of this interesting novel, I realized that I was still left with pressing doubts regarding not only the author's intentions, but some of the themes in the book as well. How does the book critique society? What does it show the reader in terms of equality and death?

After finishing the book and doing some research, I found out that the book was published in 1852, only a couple of years before a civil war broke out in the USA. Having this context I realized that this was a strong a critique as Stowe dared make before people had really started fighting for equality. Anything more radical or more graphic than that would have probably landed her in jail, simply because she was denouncing one of the evils of society. That's what makes this such an incredible and revolutionary book. It may seem vague and somewhat detached from reality today, but at the time it was a huge step forward in the fight for equality.

One of the other pressing questions that remained was why did the author chose to kill most of the characters the reader grows more attached to? After careful consideration I arrived at the conclusion that she killed her most virtuous characters. Eva, St. Clare and Tom represented kindness, and they had the values she believed a utopist society would have. It was these characteristics which alienated these three characters from the rest, making them stand out. Stowe made the reader grow attached to them because one can relate to their thoughts and feelings. Killing them was her way of making us feel, just for a second, the pain and outrage these slaves had to live through on a daily basis.

Despite it being a more romanticized novel than I expected, I ended up enjoying the book, particularly after having arrived at the conclusions I did. This work of art not only manages to tell an intricate story containing various characters who end up being somehow related, she uses the narrative to make the reader experience what the characters felt in the most subdued way possible. The lack of poetic justice is an accurate portrayal of how unfair life was for the slaves at the time, and is, in itself, a critique to society. 

Future Uncertainty

Although it talks about slavery and it isn’t the first book I read in the topic, Uncle Tom's Cabin is a book unlike any other I have ever read. Although it focuses on slavery, I can't help but notice connections to several novels we have read throughout the year. I have already discussed some of these similarities in my previous blog but as I read the last section I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between this book and another work, Hamlet. Although it is presented in very different ways, both of these books address the topics of action and inaction, and the consequences these may have in people's lives.

Hamlet's entire story revolves around the fact of whether or not he chooses to take action and live up to his family name, or continue t9o be a coward and live in shame. A clear example of this is when Hamlet exclaims, "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." (Act 3, Sc 1, Ln 4) This quote not only reflects Hamlet's fear of carrying out his actions, it is the perfect portrayal of human being's fear of action due to the consequences we may later face. However, this is not the only fear we experience since our inaction itself may bring even more dire consequences than the actions themselves would have. We are often caught in this awkward limbo between what we want to do and what we actually end up doing, often without stopping to measure the implications this may have on our lives.

Tom's story, although quite different, does have one similar element, and that presents itself at the moment of Mr. St. Clare's death, when Toms starts to wonder what will happen to his dreams of becoming a free man. Tom begins to wonder about "the hope of liberty, the thought of distant wife and children, rose up before his patient soul…seen over the top of some black wave only for one last farewell." (pg. 367) Tom was caught in the same situation as Hamlet after Eva's death, when St. Clare told him he could go back to his family, yet Tom decided to stay with him until they both got over their terrible loss. This decision, although made unaware of its repercussions, left Tom worse off than when he started, for he not only lost Eva, and St. Clare, waiting caused him to lose his family and his freedom as well. This brings up the question of whether it is better to do as our heart tells us to, or if following the path of the mind is what should be done. The future is unpredictable and no one can know what things will come their way, and this makes each and every one of our actions vital, yet meaningless at the same time because regardless of what you do, you don’t know if you made the right decision.

Indecision is something that will be present in our lives whether we are young or old, smart or inexperienced. The unpredictability of the future is what keeps life interesting and if we always knew what we were going to do in every situation, what would be the point of living?

It's a Mad World We're Living In

Living in a world we consider mad may have various effects on people and the way they view different aspects of life. Madness, both in literature and in real life, has helped open the eyes of many, and allowed them to see that was really in front of them. In Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, madness is present in the society the book portrays, but this madness leads the characters to look further into the realities of life, and reflect, much like the Chief did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, on the intricacies of loss and justice.

Although they are very different characters, both the Chief and Augustine St. Clare grieve in silence. This can be demonstrated when Marie accuses her husband of not showing any emotion regarding the recent death of their daughter, and Miss Ophelia answers "Still waters run the deepest." (pg. 342) Despite it being a short quote, it portrays how the people that appear to be the most calm or collected often have storms raging on inside their heads. Or else the pain they feel regarding the loss of freedom or the loss of a loved one has left them empty inside, allowing for nothing other than their prolonged silence, since they no longer have words to express what they are feeling (or, in some cases, not feeling.) This also shows how easy it is to judge things at first sight, without taking the time to understand what is really going on and why they look or act the way they do. These two characters lost the most important pillars in their lives, and were left stranded in the middle of the ocean of life, with no one to hold on to except for McMurphy and Uncle Tom.

Another aspect that stands out in both of these works is how the most unusual people often hold the most truth in regards to society, whether it is in the form of an innocent, sweet little girl or a tall, quiet Native American in a mental asylum. When a seven year old girl is the only one who can see what is wrong with society, such as is expressed in the following quote: "…when I saw those poor creatures… [I] felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery." (pg 313) one realizes that there truly is something wrong. Much in the same way the Chief ends up being one of the most sober characters in the novel, Eva is the only character who has transmitted her feelings of injustice to those around her, insisting that they live in an unfair world, that people should be loved and cared for, regardless of their skin color. This little girl is the voice of reason trying to get through to all those others who simply live by society's standards, without stopping to question why they do the things they do. Whenever we question society and its ways, we are considered mad, and if this holds true, then mad people are the only ones that will seek to change things and actually strive to make a difference in their societies, regardless how big or small.

Telling two completely different, yet somewhat relating stories, both Ken Kessey and Harriet Beecher Stowe manage to capture an essence of humanity that is often forgotten or disregarded by most: madness and the way it affects us as people and the stand we take regarding different things. It takes mad people to change the world, but when a change is needed, madness is the only answer.

I will stop procrastinating...tomorrow

I like to consider myself a responsible person. However, I am about as irresponsible as possible while still managing to turn my work in on time. Why is that, you may ask? The answer is simple; I am a victim of the "student's curse," the art of procrastination.

I call it an art because there are several ways one can procrastinate, if you don’t believe me ask Hamlet! Apart from incessant rants and endless tirades thinking about the task he has to carry out, he also manages to set up a play in order to confirm his suspicions, show his somewhat mixed feelings to the woman he loves, kill her father, enrage her brother and kill his mother. All for the sake of procrastination. Ingenious.

However, as I write this mere hours before it is due, I cannot help but wonder whether all procrastinators leave things until the last minute because maybe, in some level of our subconscious, we enjoy the rush of knowing time is running out and there is still work to be done. Or maybe we are masochists who enjoy doing other things while thinking about what we should be doing, yet continue to do whatever it is that is somehow impeding us from completing our task.  

The question we must ask ourselves is what do we get from procrastination? Is there a reason we do it time and time again? Doesn't it often result in increasing levels of stress, lack of sleep, and self chastising for not having finished it before? It does, yet we decide to change our ways some other day, we have more important things to do at the moment. Or do we?

To be or not to be...a murderer

Our society is shaped in such a way that kids grow up hearing about violence on a pretty regular basis, and there is always the question of whether this de-sensitizes us from the reality of things. In this same way, Hamlet is living in an extremely violent world. Those were times where dying in battle was heroic, and murdering for revenge heroic.

As I listened to the podcast of the inmates acting Hamlet and interpreting the characters and the plot of the play, one of them caught my attention. Danny Waller, who played the ghost, talked about how interpreting that character had somehow brought him closer to the man he had murdered. "I took a man's life. And I felt he was talking to me through that. That he wanted me to know what I put him through."

Hearing this made me think about a documentary we watched in Macroeconomics class a couple of weeks ago, where they interviewed "Popeye", Pablo Escobar's main hitman and right hand. This man admitted to participating in the murder of over 250 people and stated that when they killed Pablo Escobar, who he followed for years and for whom he even killed his own girlfriend, he "did not cry because [his] soul is dead." Does this de-sensitization reach the point of ridding us of conscience? Of morals?

Can reading and performing Hamlet have that big an effect on people who have already done so much wrong? Do these people really change? Is there really anything to change or was it simply a one-time thing, a momentary slip up that changed their lives? Do they really repent or is that part of them that momentarily took over still looming somewhere in the back of their mind, waiting to attack again?

Between Action and Inaction

Despite claiming that he was not meant to be prince Hamlet, J. Alfred Prufrock demonstrates, throughout his so called "love song", that he is, in fact, much worse.

Both characters start out with the same uncertain and dubious state of mind. They both have things they have to do, yet are afraid to do them, just as Prufrock demonstrates when he says "And indeed there will be time to wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” "(Line 38). Prufrock has to take his relationship with the girl he fancies to the next level, yet he does not have the courage to do so. Meanwhile, Hamlet is presented with proof that his uncle murdered his father and is asked to seek revenge, yet he decides to look for more evidence before deciding to do anything. They are both avoiding the task they have to complete, and are choosing to over-analyze every aspect of their mission instead. They are both cowards.

Although there is a shift in both Hamlet and Prufrock as their stories continue, the difference between them is that Hamlet finally decided to take action, while Prufrock is stuck wallowing in self pity. Hamlet decides to "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action" (Act III Scene II Line 17) and actually start to do something about the precarious situation he finds himself in. Even though he wavers at first, he ends up setting out to do as he originally planned, throwing all thoughts regarding consequences away. On the other hand, Prufrock ends his song contemplating death and the imminent failure of the plan he always thought of but never carried out. Hamlet dies having accomplished his objective, and all Prufrock does is think.

Prufrock denies that he is like Hamlet, but what he does not realize is that his prolonged thoughts on action lead to inaction, which is exactly what he wants to avoid. Indecision makes away with him and leaves him thinking about what could have been.  Hamlet ends up finding himself, while Prufrock only gets lost in his own vast universe. 

Response to "Dangers of a Single Story"

Every single culture has stereotypes. The world tends to believe that all Americans are fat, all Africans are poor, Asians are smart, Europeans smoke, and people from South America live in trees. We have all been subject to these "dangers of a single story", yet, just like Chimamanda Adichie, we have believed some as well.

This past summer I participated in a 3 week course at Yale University. There were 750 high school students on campus, and we were exposed to many people from different ethnicities and nationalities. At the beginning, when we were getting to know each other, many asked me where I was from. When I answered "Colombia", most of them just gave me blank stares, while others asked "That’s in Africa, right?". At first I was surprised and even offended that many people did not know in what hemisphere Colombia was, until I was faced with a similar situation. A foreigner girl asked me where I was from and she identified Colombia straight away. However, when I asked her where she was from and she answered "Bahrain" it was my turn to stare.

We often judge people based on what they don’t know, when, instead, we should focus on everything we have yet to learn.