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Literature
Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Dramatic Adaptation of the Novel
2006
Topic sentences: George Aiken’s adaptation of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (by Harriett Beacher Stow) and the play
Introduction
The Cherry Orchard by Anthon Chekov deal with society-in–flux. In both cases, we find the common theme of moral melodrama being stressed. Yet, whereas in Aiken’s adaptation avoids the abolitionist theme, which takes the center stage in the novel, in Chekov’s play, human drama in the midst of collapse of aristocracy becomes a leitmotif. Aiken's version craftily weakens the importance of the strong abolitionist politics, which comes as a comic break to the six-act play.
Property: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Aiken’s adaptation depicts the story of plantation ownerArthur Shelbywho has to sell some of his slaves to prevent the loss of his estate in Kentucky. He sells Uncle Tom to the cruel Mr. Haley to pay off his debts. Shelley represents the depravity typical of slavery such that even a cultured, caring and benevolent person like him behaves in the most brutal way. Aiken’s play highlights the shrewd element in Shelley to pick Uncle Tom for selling since he knows that Tom has a keen sense of Christian beliefs and would even put up with awful penalty more willingly than to go against his values. Aiken focuses on the anguish of both “owned and owner” in slavery system that is self-destructive. This might be the cause that drives Mrs Shelley to divulge Eliza Harris, Mrs.Shelly’s maid about the plan of her husband to sell Eliza off. Being a wife and mother as well as young, attractive and smart, Eliza proves her mettle by making an amazing escape, crossing the frozen Ohio River (Uncle Tom's Cabin, Potomac Stages). The brave Eliza announces her decision in a melodramatic way
“ Powers of mercy, protect me! How shall I escape these human bloodhounds? Ah! The window -- the river of ice! That dark stream lies between me and liberty! Surely the ice will bear my trifling weight. It is my only chance of escape -- better sink beneath the cold waters, with my child locked in my arms, than to have him torn from me and sold into bondage. He sleeps upon my breast -- heaven, I put my trust in thee!" (George L. Aiken, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) Act I, sc. 4)
Cherry Orchard: the fall of aristocracy
The Cherry Orchard presents a small section of Chekhov's turn-of-the century Russia. It sill has the antiquated serf who craves for the old regime, the wasteful and incompetent landowners like (Madame Ranevsky, Gaev, Semyonov-Pishtchik-- unable to deal with the world in-flux; the unrealistic but weak intellectual like Trofimov and, lastly, Lopahin, once a nobody yet who through his perseverance and energy, gathers control over changing situations and now a successful businessman who buys the Ranevsky family's much-loved cherry orchard, a proposal he made earlier as a solution to save the family from financial ruin), together with their house and the estate in auction. To an initially hesitant Ranevsky, her brother advices: “Someone gets sick, you know, and the doctor suggests one thing after another, that means there's no cure . . . " (p. 346) For now, Trofimov represents the Russian intellectuals who spew out theories but have no objective of carrying them out them, says "We have to seek out the truth, you know. Most of the people in this country aren't working toward anything. . . They certainly don't do much." (p. 357) [This from a man who has just spent five years lolling around, sponging off the Ranevsky family (The Cherry Orchard. Literature Annotations).
The human endeavor that wins
Eliza Harris is Aiken’s adaptation and Lopahin in the Cherry Orchard suggests that it is neither social power nor the high-handedness of aristocracy that has the last word in history but the desire to break the shackles of slavery or to dream to reach at the top with firmness and resolution can move history in its forward march.
Works Cited
Stow, Harriett Beacher, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Complete text downloaded from
Schmidt, Paul (ed.) The Plays of Anton Chekhov, HarperCollins, New York, 1997
The Cherry Orchard, Literature Annotations,
db/webdocs/webdescrips/chekhov11865-des-.html
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Potomac Stages,
Aiken, George L., Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly.A Domestic Drama in
Six Acts, downloaded from