Huckleberry Finn or Uncle Tom Cabin - Essay Example

ano)-to a slave trader. Although Emily Shelby despises such an idea as she had assured her maid that her child, in no way , would be sold; Emily's son, George Shelly (Thomas Fritsch), detests to see Tom leaving as he finds him as his great friend and guide. Eliza , on the first impression, appears to be a very weak woman.Eavesdropping on Mr. and Mrs. Shelby she comes to know aabout their plans to sell Tom and Harry, when she resolves to flee with her son. From the film it appears that Eliza's decision comes not from her courage or confidence not to bow down to injustice, but by her fear of losing her onlyliving child (she already lost two children owing to miscarriage).

Next we see her leaving the house of Arthur and Eliza Emily Shelby that night, leaving a letter admitting guilt to her mistress. But why should she The answer is to be found in the novel which the film follows strictly. In the novel Stowe portrayed like Eliza, as an as the "ideal Christian"(Athena, 1995). Later critics have observed that Stowe's female characters are often " domestic cliches", weak rather than strong and realistic women(Lowance et al, 1994). Stowe's puritinical values show up in the novels final, overriding subject matter -- the search of the nature of Christinaity and how Christianity goes aginst slavery that also overshadows the film , the theme being most evident when we see Tom insisting St. Clare(O.W. Fisher) to "look away to Jesus" after the death of St.

Clare's dearest daughter little Eva ( the white young girl whoTom saves fron drowing down Mississipi river while he is sold and placed on a boat sailing down the and with whom he befriends a young white girl. Augustine St.Clare, the grateful father of Eva, in return, Eva's father, buys Tom from the slave trader and takes him with the family to their home in New Orleans while Tom and Eva starts to come closer owing to the the deep Christian faith they both share). After Tom's death , waxing lyrical about Tom George Shelby, says, "What a thing it is to be a Christian.". Christianity as theme dominating over the novel makes the film appear like a lecture where women are always to be depicited as submissive and yeilding, carinng only to motherhood.

Those women who are depicted as Villainous here, are the typse that donot conform to Christianity. For example, the wife of St.Clare (Eleonara Rossi-Drago). After St. Clare is gravely stabbed while trying to stop a fight intervening in a fight Mrs St.Clare breaks her late husband's promise and sells Tom at mart to a brutal plantation owner named Simon Legree( Herbert Lom).Legree , not an indigenous southerner but a relocated Yankee. This very act of Mrs St.Clare suggests that the film has the message that women , if not belonging to the meek, religious values teaching submissio can become ruthlessly cruel to counteract their male partners, in this case the good and sincere St.Clare. We also see