God. God. God

A recurring motif I have noticed in the novel is the constant appearance of God and Christ. They are the biggest influence of good the novel portrays. Tom and Eva for instance, are sanctified and their figures are highly influenced and connected to jesus. However, what does this mean? Is Christ as a recurring character a method Stowe had of imposing christianity in her readers, or does God and Christ signify something deeper? 

Christianity states that one should be fair to your fellows, and show them love, equality and respect. It makes me wonder how hypocritical southern racist christians truly were. Eva for us is not a hypocritical Christian, she represents what a true and loyal christian should be. Eva tells Topsy how "Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you, as me. He loves you just as I do, – only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go to Heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white."  With this quote, Stowe glorifies Eva as the ideal christian. She want the readers to comprehend how fraudulent religious slave owners were, and exhibit how one should be. Instead of directly attacking racist religious people, she delicately reveals a pressing critique through  Eva's and Tom's attitudes. Doing otherwise during that time period, such as directly dissing on slavery could have affected her as an author, and possibly caused her more than one problem, even legally. 

Stowe romanticizes the story to protect herself from being attacked during the time. Her critique towards slavery is equally as strong as a direct one, however she deviates her reader from her true message through a happy story on slavery. She hides  the meaning of the story by adding layers of metaphors and amorous characters, and through the use of Christ she pushes her readers to believe in what she thinks. 

The Universal Theme of Madness

Who  has the right to define what is normal and what is not?  Uncle Tom's Cabin as well as many other novels, such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest analyze this subject. Eva (Uncle  Tom's Cabin) for instance, to us is seemly the only sane one in the story as she is not racist, but to her society she is rather crazy. On the other hand, Chief Bromden (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) gives the impression that he is mad and therefore is in a medical ward, when in fact he perfectly would conform our society.  

Eva is a young white girl that seems perfectly normal. She lives in the south and her family owns various black slaves, however she is different in the sense that she treats those slaves as equals. Eva gives them care, support and love. For example, she helps Topsy (a rebellious slave) and even says "I love you, because you haven’t had any father, or mother, or friends; – because you’ve been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good." (Pg.321) During that time, slavery in the south was widely approved of. Therefore, when Eva expresses love so explicitly to her slaves, she is considered mad. To her society she is someone with rebellious opinions, but to us she is the one of only sane characters the novel exhibits. In contrast, Chief Bromden from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the same. Here, Chief Bromden is the only sane one in a society of people we perceive as  insane. He has to act like he is deaf and mute in order to conform that society, because what normal would be to us, to them wouldn't be accepted. 

This leads us to believe that for all we know, society has imposed over us the idea of what fits into the range of "normal" and what doesn't. We base our definitions of what is "okay" depending on society. Here we see three different societies: ours, Eva's and Chief Bromden's. Each has a different definition of normal and acceptable, thus society defines what is normal and acceptable. Normal and okay is subjective, we each have our own definition of it, and no one should be able to judge our different definitions on it. 

Racism: A Constant Pattern

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a novel that explores the idea of anti-slavery and approaches the topic through a touching story about compassionate non-racist white people. This novel was very influential during the civil war, however it doesn't mean it changed what people believed. In the book one finds different characters who are noble and treat african americans as equals. However,  in the movie The Help, (which takes place 80 years later) one also finds characters who treat african americans as equals or as inferiors, questioning america's unchanging society.

The book exhibits how good people existed in the time, but it also reveals the reality behind slavery during its worse point. To connect the movie The Help to this book is a way to demonstrate how good and bad people have always existed. The civil war ended more than twenty years before the events of the movie, however racism is still evident. People in the 1850s such as Mr. Haley who would refer to african americans like "an old rack o' bones,-not worth her salt" which wouldn't even "take her for a present..." (Pg. 135) reveal that sense of superiority white people had. In the movie, simply to fit in with the rest of the community, one of the characters unjustly treats her black maid like trash when usually she wouldn't have done it. The bad treatment towards african americas was was widely supported in the in the 1850s, however some people still didn't do it.  When Mr. Shelby is talking about selling Harry he portrays himself as "a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother" as he "would rather not sell him.." This reveals that good people existed even before the civil war, and that is what the book is trying to demonstrate to its readers. That it is not bad to be good. Both novels, at their times tried to push people into stopping slavery. The fact that two novels exist with eighty years of different exhibit how unchanging racism ideals were. 

This novel, as many others such want to convey to their viewers/readers that it is good to treat african americans like equals and not inferiors. They try to show slavery or segregation as cruel and unfair, by providing contrasting characters that exhibit that equal treatment. I wanted to compare this movie because it reveals how people hadn't changed, even eighty years later. That even though slavery was didn't exist legally  segregation and discrimination were still there. African americans were still emotional slaves for the whites because they felt they still owned them. 

Now or Later? Tough Choice.

This article analyzes and compares procrastination in Hamlet's time and today. It is quite interesting, but I cannot help but think it is deviated from reality. Procrastination occurs when there is a task you do not wan't to complete because it is not of your interest and would rather do something else that entertains you. Why Hamlet hesitated so much about killing Claudius to avenge his father's death could be interpreted as procrastination because he wouldn't have naturally thought about assassinating others, so it was a tough choice to make. Murder was an act he wouldn't have done casually and much less with pleasure. The same idea goes to our everyday tasks. Not everyone enjoys or embraces happily what they have to do, so they probably leave it for another day thinking it simply might go away.   

This article bases its argument in that procrastination is caused solely  by laziness, and that to surpass it they key is to break that duty into pieces. I believe it is not about breaking it up and diving the work so it doesn't seem that arduous. It's about setting your mind to accept and embrace the fact that that duty has to be done, and to start doing it because the deadline may be a second away. For example, many people do not like to write, or they don't enjoy it. Writing is rather a burden, and a chore you have to complete in order to graduate. I do not enjoy writing, but I have to. When the time to write an essay comes, I am part of that group that grunts and hopes it's simply over with. I am lazy when it comes to writing because I don't like it, and it feels like I'm living with a constant writer's block. I wish I could procrastinate and not write it, but then I'd fail my English courses. Therefore, I embrace that fact and write, write, write, until I'm done and don't have to think about it ever again. 

Procrastination isn't based on pure laziness. It goes much further and deeper than simply that. It is due to denial: the lack of acceptance from our brains. The article isn't so incorrect either, because in part  it is due to pure laziness as it is not something we pleasure. Procrastination is going to be a big problem in a world were not everyone enjoys what they have to do. Humans are designed that way and there is nothing we can do about it but embrace the fact, move on and try to not procrastinate. 

Our Experiences Affect How We Perceive Things

How can a prisoner relate to Hamlet? One may not think about it very much because this is a comparison not many would do, but it indeed is correct. Prisoners can relate to Hamlet in countless different ways, and believe it or not, it helps some of them for the best. After listening to the podcast by This American Life in which Jack Hitt, the man who studied the process of staging Hamlet in the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center was interviewed due to his observations. He saw men living hell in prison due to their guilt stage a play that portrays a man pondering the about consequences of a crime and change their attitudes through the development of the acting.

After listening to the podcast I realized how each prisoner made a personal connection to Hamlet. Their experiences, what they had been through and their crimes influenced them to analyze Hamlet differently. Their different kinds of emotions and guilts led them to connect to Hamlet in ways that would help each of them as individuals. They associated Hamlet with what they wanted and with what they chose, but each varied on each individual  There is no such thing as a common interpretation.

The effects Hamlet had on the inmates were infinite. I recall two men who were completely changed by this experience: Dany Waller and Brad Jones. Waller interpreted the Ghost of the deceased king Hamlet and he spoke on how acting him pulled him closer to the person he murdered. The lines he recited as the Ghost put him in the positon a victim of murder would be, and they talked to him. He was explicit when saying he "felt he [Waller's victim] was talking to me through that. That he wanted me to know what I put him through." Waller could understand his victim's pain, surprise and anguish when the murder took place, and through this he was able to manage his guilt easier. On the other hand, Jones played Hamlet for the first time after 13 years in prison.  He said that jail had changed him, and that he wasn't the same person he was before. He had reached his low point before, but now he was ready to keep going higher each time. The play had taken part in that transformation, he said, playing Hamlet and “exercising his mind kept him from losing it”.  How is it possible for a man condemned to prison for more than 13 years be able to have a transformation as such? A condemnation like that has to be due a very serious crime such as murder, rape or worse: both.


Various characters relate to the play in different ways, but they connect to it specially emotionally and personally. It goes farther away than setting a relationship. It helps the inmates connect and share their pain or regret. They find it as a way to flee from their worries. For instance, one of the inmates had said that while he interpreted Hamlet he felt human again. Due to this violent play that includes murder, and betrayal they can relate to it. Inmates are able to connect to it, and their revelations exhibit their human and humble side.

Cowards Back Then and Nowadays

This article analyzes and compares procrastination in Hamlet's time and today. It is quite interesting, but I cannot help but think it is deviated from reality. Procrastination occurs when there is a task you do not wan't to complete because it is not of your interest and would rather do something else that entertains you. Why Hamlet hesitated so much about killing Claudius to avenge his father's death could be interpreted as procrastination because he wouldn't have naturally thought about assassinating others, so it was a tough choice to make. Murder was an act he wouldn't have done casually and much less with pleasure. The same idea goes to our everyday tasks. Not everyone enjoys or embraces happily what they have to do, so they probably leave it for another day thinking it simply might go away.   

This article bases its argument in that procrastination is caused solely  by laziness, and that to surpass it they key is to break that duty into pieces. I believe it is not about breaking it up and diving the work so it doesn't seem that arduous. It's about setting your mind to accept and embrace the fact that that duty has to be done, and to start doing it because the deadline may be a second away. For example, many people do not like to write, or they don't enjoy it. Writing is rather a burden, and a chore you have to complete in order to graduate. I do not enjoy writing, but I have to. When the time to write an essay comes, I am part of that group that grunts and hopes it's simply over with. I am lazy when it comes to writing because I don't like it, and it feels like I'm living with a constant writer's block. I wish I could procrastinate and not write it, but then I'd fail my English courses. Therefore, I embrace that fact and write, write, write, until I'm done and don't have to think about it ever again. 

Procrastination isn't based on pure laziness. It goes much further and deeper than simply that. It is due to denial: the lack of acceptance from our brains. The article isn't so incorrect either, because in part  it is due to pure laziness as it is not something we pleasure. Procrastination is going to be a big problem in a world were not everyone enjoys what they have to do. Humans are designed that way and there is nothing we can do about it but embrace the fact, move on and try to not procrastinate. 

One Story, One Perspective

I've always been proud of where i'm from. Each and every time I hear about Colombia and not Columbia or in a good way my heart skips a beat. I feel pride and take my country and culture passionately. However, I am subject of ignorance and negative accusations about my country. As not everyone has come here and learned the truth, they focus their thoughts on single stories. Everyone, including me, is susceptible to the "dangers of a single story", with which we only focus on what we've been told without bothering to look in deeper. 

Last year I went to a summer camp in France with three other colombians. It was a small camp of about fifty students, of which most were Spanish or from German speaking countries. I was quite offended to hear some spaniards ask if "we could speak some colombian", as they wanted to hear our dialect, and  constantly asked "how we spoke spanish so well". I was left dumbfounded as to me it was common knowledge that the spanish had conquered colombia, and we had therefore inherited their language and many of their cultural traditions.

Most of them knew more than 3 languages, which impressed me even more. Some knew english, spanish, french, german and italian or Portuguese. I was shocked as to how they could know so much, and yet so little. They might have not known were I was from, or if that even existed, but they knew so many things about the world I was blind too. Many of the countries in the middle east I was left to think on which was which, and then I realized how this superficiality is wider than I thought. How this ignorance not only affects others, but it also affects those already affected.