Characters of the Best Kind
This morning, I read Andrew Delbanco's New York Times review of David S. Reynolds' book "Mightier Than the Sword." The review, "The Impact of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,'" follows by several weeks a New York Times Op-Ed piece by Reynolds who wrote claiming that Uncle Tom, the book character, "was physically strong and morally courageous" and unfairly became the epithet by which African-Americans were sometimes stained if they were perceived by others as betraying their own race. Several letters-to-the-editor followed, one seeming to suggest that Uncle Tom deserved every nuance of his later negative, "minstreled," often-used and dreaded image; and the other claiming "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had a positive, significant impact on African-Americans in the early half of the 20th century and, interestingly, was a source of information about slavery for the children and grandchildren of slaves. Delbanco, today, concludes his review with, "Perhaps the fact that readers today have trouble taking seriously its heroes and villains is a tribute to its achievement — since, in some immeasurable way, it helped bring on the war that rendered unimaginable the world that Stowe attempted to imagine."
It's been years since I read "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and I don't remember the details of Tom or the story, but I remember liking and admiring the character very much. I felt without analysis that his reputation had been unfairly soiled. I remember thinking at the time that he reminded me of the book version of Jean Valjean, from "Les Misérables," created just a few years later and popular among soldiers during the American Civil War. Both characters may have been strong physically, but their value to me was the depth and size of their souls. In both works, they were far bigger than the Lilliputian-sized characters that for the most part surrounded them. They pioneered difficult trails and traits which few are willing to trudge or cultivate, continually making choices to help others and to ignore their own needs and desires even when it caused them pain, personal difficulty and in the end, directly or indirectly, their own demises. Both, I suppose, if they had chosen differently, could have lived on. But they didn't, and they live on in memory, influence and discussion because they didn't. They were selfless to their respective deaths, and their author-created strength reminds me to try a little harder to distance myself from the easy, slick and natural trait of selfishness.
Of course, when I look at them with late 20th and early 21st century eyes and thoughts, I see both of them out of context: I don't hear Valjean's French language nor even a substitutable French accent, and I know virtually nothing about and have little interest in the French revolution of that era. While I've read some about American slavery, I can't begin to imagine Tom's living experience or even living under slavery's more modern descendants and influences. But, in my life and context, I need all the positive inspiration I can find, and I see them both (out of context) fitting in rather nicely.
We live in a world where confusion and conflict seemingly reign supreme, and I can only believe that as a society, we need more inspiring, selfless characters like Tom and Valjean, even if some may believe they are not "realistic" or denigrate them for their very selflessness. And, it doesn't stop at literature. We need more selflessness from the flesh and blood types, including and maybe especially me. I've heard of, seen and known enough selfless human beings to know that it is possible to be alive and selfless. Selfless characters—literary or flesh and blood–inspire me to try harder to be a bit better. I aspire to be more like them.
