Although Uncle Tom's Cabin is not on the TOG Year 3 Unit 3 Redesigned reading list, we felt that we had to read it. Obviously it was a classic.  It was mentioned in every dialectic book we read for the history studies of the 19th century. Apparently, Abraham Lincoln once said, "This is the little lady who started the big war."  My son, daughter and I enthusiastically got our own copies of the book.  Even though my son never finished his copy, he certainly enjoyed different parts he did read.  One scene in particular I figured would make him laugh. Sure enough, I heard him giggling one day while reading that particular scene.    My daughter and I enjoyed Uncle Tom's Cabin immensely, which definitely influenced our understanding of the events leading to the Civil War. 

    In between house hunting, I searched on-line for ideas on a good literary analysis paper for my daughter to write. I thought it should center around the title of the book, yet I had trouble nailing down how to do that.  I decided to ask the ladies at my TOG yahoo group for ideas.  One of the TOG moms who also uses IEW gave me several ideas from her co-op.  As badly as I wanted my daughter to do a paper on the title of the book, which is a great topic clincher title as taught in IEW, I gave her the freedom to choose from the list of ideas I had received.

     She decided to compare the kitchens in the novel and the cultures they represented.  She wasn't sure how to begin so I helped her plan out the paper. It could be set up with IEW's unit 8 structure: introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and conclusion with a persuasive point.  Each of the three kitchens would get a body paragraph. She had a plan and made a KWO that she showed to me while I was unpacking.  I took a break and looked it over.  It was a good start but needed fine tuning. I helped her clarify her topic sentences.  Who's kitchen?  Where? Descriptive word?  Then we looked at each supporting detail. Did each one support the topic sentence?  If not, it had to go.  She pled to keep them. "But..." she'd beg. "But does it relate to the topic sentence?" I'd counter.  She resolved to stay on topic.

     After some tweaking I let her loose to work on her paper independently.  For the next couple of weeks she set aside time to write the paper, add stylistic techniques, and edit. Finally I had the costumes finished for the unit celebration and I said the paper was due. Yesterday I printed it out and handed it to her to read aloud for the unit celebration rehearsal. Not having previously read it, this was the first I heard it.  It flowed!  It was cohesive!  Hmmmm, first person in the introduction and conclusion, yet third person in the body paragraph's?  I told her that technically it should all be third person, but admitted that personally, I liked it with the mix!  My husband did too!  She may have needed to further compare the cultures.  Overall, I was pleased with her paper, especially considering she did not rely on me for every step of the process. 

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  Shining Standards

     When we walk into a kitchen, what kind of atmosphere do we usually anticipate?  Do we expect warmth or cheery fires burning in the fireplace while people are casually chatting with each other?  Or do we expect rebellion or an angry cook hitting an assitant with a rolling pin, because they failed to put in the right ingredient?  In truth, we anticipate the warm, cozy feeling of friends chatting around the kitchen and a fire cooking sizzling hotcakes and sausage.  Let us now journey into the lives of those in Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in the 1850's, and see what kind of lessons we can learn from the kitchens of Aunt Chloe, Dinah, and Rachel Halliday, in which Stowe demonstrated the culture of antebellum America.  

     Living on a plantation in Kentucky, Aunt Chloe was a slave and the head cook of the Shelby household.  In her cabin as well as in the mansion kitchen, the atmosphere was friendly and inviting. There was absolute harmony. Her mistress and Uncle Tom, who was her husband and confidant, taught her about God. Encouraging her to always have faith in God, he persuaded her to pray for her master, because he foresaw that if anything terrible happened to him, Chloe would be easily tempted to rebel against their master rather than forgiving and gathering money to rescue him.  "'Pray for them that 'spitefully use you, the good book says,' says Tom." Promptly, while the dishes were being cleared, she would stroll to her cabin to "get her ole man's supper". Her inviting kitchen warmly welcomed the master's son, as he would come to teach Tom how to read and write, while she cooked a delicious supper for them all.  While Tom's sons were eating theirs, they would tickle each other and roll all over the ground in merry laughter. Later, she was allowed by Mrs. Shelby to hire herself out as a confectioner in order to redeem her husband from the plantation in the Deep South and restore him to her. Whereas the atmosphere of Chloe's kitchen was cozy, cherry, and caring, Dinah's kitchen was dull, drab, dirty and dingy.

     Working as the head cook of the St. Clare household, Dinah was a slave, whose master lived in a stately mansion located in boggy Louisiana. Carelessly, he allowed them to get away with anything like not having a neat kitchen, because he felt that he would be too harsh on them if he ordered them about all the time. In truth, he was lazy.  Openly rebelling against him, Dinah and all the slaves thought that if their master could be idle, they could be lazy too.  Fervently, Dinah expressed her views against the newfangled ideas that St. Clare tried to convince her to follow. Every time he bought her more cupboards and drawers, she would deliberately put things there that did not belong. Cleaning it only when she wanted to, she usually left the kitchen a pigsty. After she had finished "clarin up" the kitchen, she would tell all the little rouges to stay out "for she was gwine to have things kept nice." When Miss Ophelia, who was St. Clare's cousin, saw the unorganized kitchen,  she was horrified yet undeterred.  Much to Dinah's disapproval, she got right to work cleaning and putting everything in their proper places.  Whereas the atmosphere of Dinah's kitchen was dark and dreary, readers will be instantly welcomed into the cozy, calming ambiance of Rachel Halliday's world.

       Rachel Halliday was a Quaker and a staunch abolitionist, who lived in a Northern Quaker settlement. Secretively, she worked as one of the conductors of the Underground Railroad and conducted her passengers to the North or to Canada, where they could be finally free from their oppressors. She was old and kind.  Naturally, Rachel was considered by her friends as a mother to those who were housed at her home. For instance, she called Eliza, who was one of the fugitive slaves that was stationed at her home, her daughter. "'My daughter' came naturally from the lips of Rachel Halliday; for hers was just the face and form that made "mother" seem the most natural word in the world."  Opening to the main living area, her kitchen made it easier for her to talk while she worked. While preparing dinner, Rachel would sit in her rocking chair and cordially chat with friends. Her children would help her cook dinner, since there were no slaves laboring in the Quaker settlement. While Eliza was secretly housed in her home, he felt like she was in a dream. When she awoke, she could hear the merry tinkling of the cups or the dreamy sound of a singing teakettle.  The home was a peaceful pardise to those who had wearily traveled from afar, because Rachel worked diligently to make her home a tranquil one. Strikingly the kitchen of Rachel Halliday was quite the opposite from the unorganized St. Clare mansion kitchen.

       In the cheerful kitchens of Chloe and Rachel and the drab, filthy kitchen of Dinah, which was in utter disarray, there was demonstrated the different cultures of the Pre-Civil War Era.  Harriet Beecher Stowe instructs readers today how their lives should be a pleasing aroma in God's sight.  One of the things that Stowe condemned was slavery, which was one of the ideas that greatly influenced people's lives in Antebellum America. She teaches readers how other people and their morals impact our lives on an everyday basis.  Hopefully, the lessons they teach us align with what God teaches. If not, then they will lead us down a path of uncertainty and there is bound to be heartache and disappointments.  However, if we follow God's commands, He will reward us by saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The principles that Chloe and Rachel lived by were demonstrated in their immaculate kitchen. Likewise, the morals we follow should just shine through our daily lives and in our kitchens.