The paper assignment handed out in class today is now on Blackboard. Click on “Content,” and it appears as the third item on the first list.

In addition, in our discussions today we arrived at two additional themes you might explore in a 4-6 page paper:

3. Compare and contrast the depictions of slavery that we find in the slave narratives (or one of them) with those in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Can you locate similar scenes, events, and central themes? Do you see any crucial differences? What might be the significance of the relationship between the narratives, which purport to be nonfiction but read as literary treatments of the subject, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which purports to be what we might call “realistic fiction”?

4. “The law” in its great majesty can be many things, and sometime all at once. It can state principles which call us to seek fairness and justice for all. It can appear as the repressive boot of social control. It can do its magical work by “persuasion” rather than raw force, reflecting as it does the congealed values and preferences of bygone days. Write an essay describing the role of the law in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Does Stowe oversimplify the role of law in the controversy over slavery? Why or why not? If Stowe’s portrayal of law is accurate, then what might follow with respect to abolitionists’ view of and stance toward law and the rule of law? If then answer is civil disobedience or even violent resistance, then are there dangers or perils in that stance about which Stowe is unmindful? You are free to refer to and make use of the three cases we have read so far this semester (State v. Mann, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, and the Dred Scott case).