Last session, we discussed “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. You probably either remember reading it sometime in the distant past, or you sort of think you might have read it but you’re not sure because everybody’s heard of it, right? It’s one of the most famous of all American short stories, and one of the first psychological studies of the criminal mind in American fiction. In Poe’s story, a murderer can’t get the sound of his victim’s beating heart out of his mind. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he confesses all.
Since Poe’s time, there have been many more stories that illustrate the idea that a crime cannot remain hidden: we love to believe that the truth will come out. In stories, films, and television shows, criminals feel compelled to blab for one reason or another.
In our most recent session, we discussed another early story of the type, one that is much less famous, although the author is quite well known for her novel about slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
The Wikipedia article on Harriet Beecher Stowe, tells us that she was born in Connecticut, 7th of 13 children. Her father was a Calvinist preacher, and her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was also a prominent abolitionist. She was educated at Hartford Female Seminary, where she received some education in the classics, which was unusual for a woman at that time.
When she was 21, she moved to Cincinnati. where she met a number of African Americans who had suffered from attacks by the Irish in the Cincinnati riots of 1829. Their experience contributed to her later writing about slavery. Her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe was also an abolitionist, and the Stowes took several Underground Railroad fugitives into their home.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852): In 1850, Stowe wrote to the editor of The National Era, an anti-slavery journal, about her intention to write a story about slavery: “I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak… I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.” Shortly after, in June, 1851, when she was 40, the first installment of her Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in serial form in The National Era. The novel was a sensation, causing a swell of anti-slavery sentiment in the North and a corresponding tide of indignation in the South.
For the rest of her life, Stowe continued to write and speak out on the social and political issues of her times. While none of her other publications was as influential as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she was a respected literary figure in her day. She wrote 30 books, including novels, memoirs, and the collected stories which included this week’s story, “The Ghost in the Mill.”
Sam Lawson’s Oldtime Fireside Stories, which includes “The Ghost in the Mill” is a companion volume to Stowe’s New England novel Oldtown Folks (1859). Sam Lawson is a character in Oldtown Folks, described as a lovable “do-nothing” always available to tell stories or go fishing with the boys of the town. The Fireside Stories (1872) consist of 15 short stories told by Sam Lawson to entertain oldtown boys during hearthside evenings and countryside rambles. Stowe uses dialect and colloquial expressions to illustrate the customs and superstitions of 1850s New England. (Description from LibriVox).
It was interesting to read something by Harriet Beecher Stowe other than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The dialogue does not wear well, and that put some of our group off a bit. On the other hand, it was reassuring to read a story of evil being uncovered, in this case by an Indian woman (a surprisingly complex character for the times) who is in touch with supernatural forces.
As I reader, I was personally touched by how realistically the characters of the boys are drawn, and how sympathetically the storyteller Sam works the dramatic balance between fear and reassurance for his young listeners.
