Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Love is the only power that unlocks the gate to our heart.

“That’s you Christians, all over! ---you’ll get up a society, and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it’s too much care.”

In the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the character who struck me the most was Topsy, the defiant and rowdy slave girl. She was bought as a reform project for strait-laced Miss Ophelia. “You ought to educate your slaves, and treat them like reasonable creatures, ---like immortal creatures, that you’ve got to stand before the bar of God with. That’s my mind.”, she firmly stated. Miss Ophelia believed that a New England education and Christian tutoring would reform a person from slave mentality and subdue any creature into a respectable person. But for all of her trouble, Miss Ophelia was only given grief and frustration. Topsy was incorrigible and she knew it. She believed that she was wicked and her actions proved it. She was a thief and a hopeless liar. Time and time again bore out what an incurable rascal she was.

Topsy came from a place of abuse and neglect. She never knew her parents and didn’t believe she had any. From her first master, she was cursed and treated like an animal because she was always trying to get away with something. The beatings and threatening didn’t change her behavior. It just drove into her mind the idea that she was no good. “I spects I’s the wickedest critter in the world.” Her behavior reflected her environment and she was continually trying to manipulate situations in order to stay out of trouble. But this generally brought her more trouble.

Miss Ophelia believed that teaching Topsy proper manners and training her in correct ways would reform this little girl into a civilized person. She taught her Christian virtues and good behavior. However, they were just words and didn’t stick into Topsy’s mind or change her actions. Miss Ophelia didn’t have any influence over her and the continual misbehavior infuriated the fussy lady. “Topsy! She would say when at the end of all patience, “what does make you act so?” “Dunno, Missis, ---I spects cause I’s so wicked!” Miss Ophelia expected success from her efforts, but ended up with failure after failure and frustration. She felt that she was doing her duty in trying to reform Topsy, but she didn’t have any sway over the girl. The reason that she had no influence over Topsy is explained by an admission from Miss Ophelia that, “I’ve always had a prejudice against negroes, and it’s a fact,--- I never could bear to have that child touch me.” This revealed her inner heart. She thought she could hide her true opinions from the child, but the fact is her feeling of revulsion overrode any feelings of care. “All the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart;--- it’s a queer kind of a fact, ---but so it is.”

Topsy intuited the true feelings of Miss Ophelia and this conflict did not allow her freedom to change. Topsy continued focusing on self-preservation and justification; therefore her behavior remained the same. The idea that education and a sense of duty should be motive for change is a counterfeit belief and this was clearly demonstrated to Miss Ophelia. It wasn’t until she had a change of heart and genuinely loved Topsy that unlocked the gates to having influence over her behavior. Love opened the way for Topsy to trust, believe in, and love Miss Ophelia in return. This was the most powerful incentive to change.

“It’s not what I think of me---
Or what you think of me,
But what I think you think of me that matters.”

Doing something noble or performing a good work out of duty lacks substance. I learned from Uncle Tom’s Cabin that the only true force for change in an individual and therefore the world is love….love that comes straight from the heart.

Copyright L.L. Williams