It seems that it is an important distinction that the target audience is an educated middle class one, since it is a distinction that it serves the argument of an inevitable uprising very well. Involving the middle class makes them more aware of class distinctions and often ultimately leads to questioning whether inequality is worsening or whether the gaps are closing. If the conclusion is that the general direction things are going benefits only one class, that for example, the wealthy owners are the only ones who benefit at the suffering of the working class, one can expect heightened tension between the classes.

In Jack London’s novel, we have Ernest Everhard, a member of the working class, become involved with middle class society by being invited to events such as dinner parties. At these parties, through time, he socializes with university professors, Bishops, and storeowners. Ernest proves to be a very strong contender in the discussions he has with these individuals and earns a certain degree of respect from a few of them, even though they do not agree with his predictions and messages.

Ernest begins with the subject of metaphysics to involve this middle class into the class struggle. He feels that their metaphysical concerns do not allow them to see reality clearly. Ernest points out that this middle class has no knowledge of life for the working class, and that the metaphysics they preach are such that they do not pose a threat to the capitalist class. This allows them to “herd with the capitalist class in another locality…. The capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you…” This middle class survives because it does not challenge the established order. More significantly, however, the middle class does not challenge the established order because it is entirely unaware of the established order.

To raise awareness in this middle class, Ernest presents some of the members with challenges. One such individual is Bishop Morehouse. The Bishop and Ernest engage in a discussion where issues such as class hatred, class struggles, selfishness, social science, censorship, and capitalist economics are all addressed. Ernest promises to the Bishop, “I will take you on a journey through hell,” to make him aware of the working class condition. In this journey, he promises to expose the Bishop to child labor, excessively long working hours, and the unjust ways of the capitalist class. Ernest points out that should the Bishop accept the challenge of facing the truth and the facts, that he runs the high risk of being suppressed by other members of his class. The Bishop accepts the challenge, and Ernest’s predictions about what he will see and what will happen turn out to be true.

In the same scene where Ernest poses the challenge to the Bishop, he also shocks his wife to be, Avis, by telling her that her clothes are stained with blood. In fact, all that she comes in contact with on a daily basis—her house, her food, and such—are all stained with the blood of the working class. As an example of what he means, he tells of a worker who lost his arm at the end of a long workday when he unthinkingly tried to prevent a machine from being damaged. He took the company to court, arguing that the accident would not have happened had he not had to work such long hours. He not only lost his arm and his job, but also he lost the case, the argument being that he was careless. Ernest uses this event to describe the power held by the capitalist class to control the law—to decide what justice means. When Avis asks why she had never read of the case in the newspapers, Ernest points, once again, to the power of censorship held by the capitalist class.

I do not feel that Ernest’s actions were meant in any way as shock treatment. He considered himself a social scientist. He was concerned with the facts. Ernest comes off as a person who not only feels the need to raise awareness, but to be the kind of person who wants to “force” action upon people. Following the well rounded information about socialism presented by The Young Pioneers, I did not actually think much more about socialism for quite some time, until I enrolled in a university Chicano Studies course called Globalization and Transnational Social Movements. Marx was on our reading list, and the course focused largely on the exploitation of the underdeveloped world by the United States capitalists. Action was needed to correct these wrongs.

The coursework involved a lot of research into sweatshop labor, where conditions in underdeveloped world very much resembled the conditions which London was writing about in The Iron Heel. The class was divided into several groups, and each was assigned a multinational corporation to study. Almost 100 years after The Iron Heel, we were asking the same sorts of questions that were included in Ernest’s arguments. Who is in control? Was it the governments and laws, which were supposed to represent the people? Or was it the money and the people, or rather, the creatures formed by “selfish capitalist notions” who were in control?

There were other issues with which parallels could be drawn between The Iron Heel and the world today. One of the groups of people who Ernest gets to best begin to see the conditions for the working class were the shopkeepers in the middle class. There is a scene where a discussion of fairness was taking place. The once successful, profitable shopkeepers were complaining that their profits were being eaten up by the trusts. Ernest asks them about their previous profitability. Their success had come from efficient organization, so efficient that they had managed to cut prices below what their competitors could charge. For a time, then, they were behaving much like the trusts—absorbing all the profits of the competition until there was no room for competition… until a “more efficient” mode of organization came along and drove them out of business. Today, there are many who feel like their jobs are being taken away by workers in developing countries. They complain about their wages being depressed because of the international supply and mobility of labor (and for that matter, of capital also).

There are certainly many disturbances that accompany large-scale change. The problems that were read about in my Chicano Studies course were real problems. I am not, however, confident with evolutionary theories of markets and class struggles as predicted by Marx, and in this case, London. Even if the end of capitalism, or should we look at the situation more accurately, the end of an open market economy was inevitable, what is to guarantee the outcome be a socialistic one? When we look at the turbulent history of economic growth, we are bound to find individuals and groups who are hurt by the changes. Overall, however, the historical evidence tends to mostly show that the growth benefits all groups—not just the rich.

There is another problem with socialism that does not get treated much in The Iron Heel. Early on, Ernest describes the evolutionary view the following way: “The cycle of class struggles which began with the dissolution of rude, tribal communism and the rise of private property will end with the passing of private property in the means of social existence.” In the absence of private property, what are the incentives for innovation. Even Ernest and the Bishop admit to people being selfishly motivated. People would tend to put premiums on certain jobs, services, or duties. We see this even in countries that claim to be communist. Even within these countries there are class distinctions. Different individuals have access to different goods, jobs, and even “public” services such as education.

Bluntly put, we do not live in a perfect world with perfectly ideal, moral, human beings. We hope for things to become better. We hope that our children will be living in a better world—making better decisions than we do. We hope for inequality and exploitation to just be something we read in the history books. We actively try to raise awareness of what is going on—on both a personal level as well as informing others. Revolting against a system that to a great extent works would do nothing but make those hopes more intangible. Finding a way to work with the existing system and make it more effective would be a more beneficial proposition.

The primary issue at stake in The Octopus is one of land ownership. Along the lines of the Pacific and South West Railroad, alternate sections of land had been granted to the P. and S. W. Trust by the government. The P. and S. W. invited farmers to settle the land and cultivate wheat, and ultimately to offer the land for sale, at first to the first occupants. Furthermore, the price was promised to be between $2.50 and $5.00 per acre. Improvements to the land would not affect the price, thus, for the initial settlers, the land would prove to be very valuable. They could settle, work with the land to a profitable point, work on improving the land through things like improved irrigation, and, when the Trust decided to sell the land, the farmers would acquire it at a low price. The profitability of resale would thus be great, for, as one of the major characters Annixter notes, “The land has more than quadrupled in value. I’ll bet I could sell it tomorrow for fifteen dollars an acre.” To the P. and S. W., this essentially amounts to an effective way to provide incentives to improve land. With the forces of capitalism in mind, the promise of private ownership gives the farmers an incentive to keep the land in good form and make the most of its potential.

However, considering the forces of capitalism, one would be inclined to question the interpretation of the agreement made by the railroad trust to the farmers. Genslinger, an editor to the local newspaper, points out that not only do the farmers add value, but the presence of the railroad also increases the value of the ranches, and that “fairness” would involve sharing the benefits of the rise in value between the farmers and the railroad. He further adds, “I don’t believe the P. and S. W. intends to sell for two-fifty an acre at all. The managers of the road want the best price they can get.” This proves to be the case. The railroad has taken its time in putting the land up for sale, and upon decision to sell, issues letters to the current occupants of the ranches which state the selling price to be in the range between $20.00 and $30.00 per acre. Thus begins the war between the farmers and railroad trust.

Assuming the farmers to be correct in their interpretation of the contract issued to them by the railroad, their ensuing call for violence or revolution can be seen as justified. Upon hearing of the “merciless” prices demanded by the P. and S. W., the ranchers decide to form a league against the railroad. The rapid formation of the league is accompanied with such phrases as, “This is a family affair,”  “Organization, that must be our watchword,” “Now we must stand together, now, now,” and “Every one of us here to join it, to form the beginnings of a vast organization, banded together to death, if needs be, for the protection of our rights and homes.”

At a crucial point in the novel, however, it is found that the ranchers cannot organize well enough to act as a group—and falls apart at the first experience with confrontation:

“Why, where’s all the men?” Annixter demanded of Magnus.

“Broderson is here and Cutter,” replied the Governor, “no one else, I thought you would bring more men with you.”

“There are only nine of us.”

“And the six hundred leaguers who were going to rise when this happened!” exclaimed Garnett bitterly.

“Rot the league,” cried Annixter. “It’s gone to pot—went to pieces at the first touch.”

The strength of the railroad trust was such that the farmers and families involved did not feel that collective action would so much as budge the decisions made by the railroad trust. The effectiveness of collective action, or promised collective action is hard to predict. Success depends partially in the willingness to commit to the cause at hand—the ability to overcome, or at least lessen, the free-rider problem. Everyone in the league would have wished the success of Annixter and the other men present at the above scene, but few rose to the call, or, as noted later, were made aware of the call at the appropriate time.

One can’t help but wonder what the relationship between the farmers and the railroad would have been if the outcome of the previous scene had ended differently, for example with the intended result of no bloodshed, but rather a hopefully productive encounter. One also can’t help but wonder if success or change was at all possible. The question of choice arises here—the question of an individual’s ability, or even that of a group, to actively take part in change.

Indeed, from the descriptions of the mechanisms at work in The Octopus, one would be inclined to think that choices play an incredibly small part. There is a scene where Lyman Derrick receives a railroad map. “The map was white, and it seemed as if all the color which should have gone to vivify the various counties, towns, and cities marked upon it had been absorbed by that huge, sprawling organism… a gigantic parasite flattening upon the lifeblood of an entire commonwealth.” The farmers may fight the men involved in the railroad business, but business, but that would mean little if anything. The real enemy was the railroad. It had taken on a life of its own. When Presley meets Shelgrim, the President of the P. and S. W., he says to him, “You are the head, you control the road.” Shelgrim is amused by this and replies, “I can not control it. It is a force born out of certain conditions, and I—no man—can stop it or control it.”

Following this experience, Presley first comes to the depressing conclusion that “Men were nothings,” they “fluttered and fell and were forgotten…. Men were naught, death was naught, life was naught; FORCE only existed.” Norris tries to take us away from such a pessimistic outlook, however, and to do so, he has a hermit-like character, Vanamee, talk to Presley. Presley ultimately comes to the conclusion that, “Falseness dies; injustice and oppression in the end of everything fade and vanish away. Greed, cruelty, selfishness and inhumanity are short-lived; the individual suffers, but the race goes on…. All things surely, inevitably, resistlessly work together for good.”

Norris also shows this view in the change in the character of Annixter. Annixter used to be the type content with only a few friends who mattered. He was impatient, rough, and more than content to make enemies with any act. In a transforming conversation between himself and Hilma Tree, his wife-to-be, he says, “Remember, once I said I was proud of being a hard man, a driver, of being glad that people hated me and were afraid of me? Well, since I’ve loved you I’m ashamed of it all. I don’t want to be hard anymore, and nobody is going to hate me if I can’t help it.” In Vanamee’s words, “it is not evil, but good, that in the end remains.”

While both these ends are more reassuring in their optimism concerning the “big picture,” it does not quite fully satisfy the reality of our daily concerns. I think it is fitting that Norris had Presley saying he was going to India. The Hindu and Buddhist religions make such views as Vanamee’s easier to accept. Hinduism calls for humans to separate their “ego-selves” from the true Self. To do so, they manage to break the cycle of karma—they realize the insignificance of their ego-selves, or what we can think of in Western terms as our personal identity. Buddhism calls for a separation from desires to end suffering. It also calls for a detachment from self. There is no such thing as the “identical I”—”The identical I never was, never is, never will be” (Sri Aurobindo). We are nothing more than forces of karma constantly flowing and changing through time.

This is not a conclusion that entirely satisfies me. I like to think that I have a will, and that the power to change things is within us all. Hopefully, those who can recognize this power do not abuse it, and use it, instead, for the betterment of as much of humanity as is rationally possible.

I have always been taught that the Civil War was a war fought over slavery and the North imposing its ways on the South. From what I have gained from high school history courses, I feel that slavery was what got the war started, but the divisions between the North and South were stronger. Those divisions, although political intervention could have probably helped ironed them out, are what allowed the Civil War to continue. These differences can be noted in the very first few paragraphs of Shaara’s foreword to his novel. The Confederate army, for example, is shown to be “an army of remarkable unity,” who “share common customs and a common faith.” By contrast, the Union army is “a strange new kind of army” made up of “vastly dissimilar men” with “strange accents and strange religions and many who do not speak English at all.”

The history of slavery was not unique to the Southern states. Slavery accompanied the founding of the United States, but it was always accompanied with hopes that it would gradually decline in use. The slave trade with Africa was abolished in the early part of the 1800s, and slavery in the North dissipated while the region began to undergo many changes, especially the increase in immigrant workers to work in the factories. The Southern states, however, were mostly dependent on a plantation economy based on crops like tobacco and cotton, and continued their use of slave labor in the fields. The North was changing rapidly, with many immigrant workers and an industrializing society built up around the city structures, compared to the relative stability of the South, where life had not changed much over the years.

And yet, though growing apart as they were, the North was, as Shaara put it, a group of “dissimilar men fighting for union,” fighting against the rebel volunteers, “an army of remarkable unity, fighting for disunion.”

This conflict between the North and South arises a couple of times in Shaara’s novel. Take, for example, Fremantle, then Englishman who accompanies Longstreet. In a passage where he is trying to work out to himself what this war is about and where it fits in with the history of the United States’ experiment in democracy, sees a similar image to the one presented above. He says, “The North has those bloody cities and a thousand religions and the only aristocracy is the aristocracy of wealth. The Northerner doesn’t give a damn for tradition, or breeding, or the Old Country. He hates the Old Country…. In the South…by and large, they were all the same nationality, same religion, same customs.” At one point, he says that the war is basically about these differences, about the “sameness” of the South to the Europe that Americans had tried to leave, contrasting with the forces of change in the North.

In addition to these forces of change and disunity, the young United States was also very economically different by geographic regions. The North (Union) was over twice as large as the South (Confederacy), both in terms of population and number of states (not land area). The North had a diverse economy and was home to many more factories and manufacturing bases than did the South, which settled with their prosperous “one crop” cotton agriculture. Most of the arms supply for the war was manufactured in the North, a fact touched on at various times throughout Shaara’s novel. For example, it is noted that many of the Confederate soldiers (volunteers) were “unpaid and self armed.”

This said, however, I think that it is unquestionable that slavery was the big issue behind the Civil War. To the Confederates, the persistence of the Union pushing their views on them was something they were quite resentful of. One of the Confederate soldiers offered the following analogy about what the war was about: “I think my analogy of the club was the best. I mean, it’s as if we all joined a gentleman’s club, and then the members of the club started sticking their noses into our private lives, and then we up and resigned, and then they tell us we don’t have the right to resign.” That they did not hold slaves in the North was supposed to make the Northerners morally better. These Northerners were people who were fighting for the ideal of freedom. The Southerners were people fighting to have their Constitutional rights upheld—not fighting a war about slavery.

At the same time there was much resentment in the North of the Southerners’ “arrogant” use of the Bible to justify their acts—trying thus to make their acts seem morally acceptable. A very interesting part of The Killer Angels which looks at this issue is the scene where the wounded black man is taken up by the Union Army. A discussion takes place between Chamberlain (sort of an idealist) and Kilrain (more of a realist). Discussing issues of racial differences between blacks and whites, Chamberlain says, “To me there was never any difference.” Chamberlain remembers a time when a Southern minister and a university professor visited him in the North. The discussion ended on slavery and morality. Chamberlain argued that men should not be used like animals, to which the minister replied, “A Negro is not a man.”

Kilrain, a man who considers himself “not a clever man,” comments on Chamberlain’s story. “No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance…. There’s many a man worse than me, and some better, but I don’t think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice.” Kilrain believes that things must change—not just in the South though, for he sees discrimination by the aristocracy that he is fighting against. “They used to have signs on tavern doors,” he tells Chamberlain, speaking of taverns in the North, “Dogs and Irishmen keep out.” The situation in the North was far from flawless. Chamberlain’s “oddness, a crawly hesitation, not wanting to touch him [the black man],” is an example of the unstable grounds that the Civil War was being fought on.

The Killer Angels ends without any real resolution, which seems strange for a novel with 100 years hindsight, until one manages to place themselves in the situation at that time. Even today, it seems like the war was unavoidable—and it was a war in which the soldiers were all a bit unclear about what they were fighting for. Even at the end, a Union soldier notes that, “When you ask them prisoners, they never talk about slavery…. If it weren’t for the slaves, there’d never have been no war, now would there?” That final question is perhaps one of the biggest ones concerning the Civil War.

To look at her problem, Stowe offers us a diverse cast of characters. Through the course of the book, we get to know Christian slaves and unchristian masters, masters and slaves who are unbelievers in Christ and in God (but for different reasons), educated slaves and illiterate masters, angels, humane people, decent people, wicked people, and people so evil, we find it hard to believe they exist.

I refrain from using skin color being black or white as the definition of slave or master, because Stowe makes it clear on numerous occasions that there were many cases where the slaves were fair skinned as a result of being the child of a black mother who had been made the mistress of the white mother. The offspring, even if fair skinned, was destined to be a slave. Take, for example, George Harris. His mother was a beautiful slave whose “personal beauty” made her “the slave of the passions of her possessor.” George ended up possessing European features, resembling more a “Spanish-looking fellow,” but being destined to a life of slavery.

Perhaps one of the most prominent depictions of the slave owners is their feeling of superiority over the slaves. Indeed, the slave race is seen as inferior. Although there is, on occasion, mention of slave marriages, it is also made clear that these were not legal marriages, and that many slaveholders felt that the slaves were too inferior to feel familial attachments. Babies were separated from their mothers, on the one hand because they were seen as a burden, and on the other, because if they could be held a couple of years more, they could bring in a higher price. Since the slaves were not often allowed the chance to show sentiment over their loss, except at the initial separation, the slaveholders pointed to that as their emotional inferiority.

Even the “kinder” slaveholding families did not always see the slaves in favorable light. Marie St. Clare, for example, who holds herself to be a humane Christian woman, held (while her husband and daughter were alive), that slaves ought to be kindly treated, but at the same time, they ought to “know their place.” They need, on occasion, to be “put down.” She sees “servants,” as she calls them, as grown up children. There is no reason to put any effort into educating slaves. They are children of God, but they are not, and should not by any mean be put “on any sort of equality with us, as if we could be compared.” Marie explicitly states that, “They are a degraded race.”

Augustine St. Clare is a different sort of person. He does not hold religion in high regard. As he says regarding Christianity and slavery, “My view of Christianity is such… that I think that no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society.” To Augustine, it seems to be hopeless. He despises slavery, although he admits it had made him rich, and he is too lazy to do anything about it. He has nothing to fall to, for he sees religion as hypocritical. He wants to believe in God, however, for as he tells Uncle Tom, “I don’t disbelieve, and I think there is reason to believe; and still I don’t.” A transformation of Augustine takes place through his time with Uncle Tom, and he makes motions to begin the freeing of his servants. Augustine never gets his chance to free all his slaves, nor any of them, for he is killed in a fight.

Augustine is not alone in his beliefs. George Harris, previously mentioned, also finds it hard to believe in a Christian God. George is an educated slave—literate, a farm manager, an inventor, and a businessman. He is owned by a cruel slaveholder who takes every chance he gets to “insult and torment” George. George directly poses the problem of evil when he says, “I ain’t a Christian… my heart ’s full of bitterness; I can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?” He feels that religion is on their side. Of the system, he points out that slaves do not have a country. There are no laws for them, only laws about them—meant to keep them down. The only thing George has is love for his wife, Eliza, and his son, Harry.

The theme of love runs strong throughout the book, as it should for a book commenting on Christianity. The fundamental teaching of Christ was that of love. In that sense, there are two true Christians in Stowe’s novel: Uncle Tom and Eva. Eva is the daughter of Augustine, and is often referred to as an angel. She is often seen playing with her father’s slaves. In a scene with her cousin, Henrique, she is essentially told that one does not love his or her servants, at which point she asks, “Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?” In a naïve way, she says that she likes having as many servants as they do at their house because “it makes so many more round you to love.” Eva begs her father to tell her he is a Christian. Augustine asks what it takes to be a Christian, to which she replies, “Loving Christ, most of all.”

Eva is not the only one who shows concern for Augustine not being Christian. Uncle Tom is also very concerned, and does not hesitate to tell Augustine so. It is something he feels, he tells Augustine, when talking of the love of Christ. Uncle Tom’s faith shows even stronger after he has been traded to the inhumane plantation owner, Legree. He comes to the point that he is willing to lay his life down to follow the laws of the Lord, and for the love of God. In one scene, he disobeys orders by his master to flog another slave. He points out to Legree that although Legree may own his body, Legree can never own his soul, for his soul is committed to the Lord. That said, Uncle Tom also states his diligent obedience to his owner, and his devotion to the message of Christ, by saying, “Mass’r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I ‘d give ye my heart’s blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I ‘d give ‘em freely, as the Lord gave his for me.”

These are but a few of the major characters in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and their insights into the problems of evil, injustice, religion, superiority, and slavery. It is interesting, however, to take some distance from the particular details of the novel and consider some philosophical and historical ideas which indirectly relate to this story (at least to my wandering mind).

One of the initial things that arises within me when I read this book is my atheistic point of view. In many ways, I am doubtful, like Augustine is, for I have never seen God, nor can I say that I know anyone who has. There is too much wrong in this world to make me comfortable with this world. On the other hand, I have known people who cannot live in this world without some sort of belief in a Supreme Being. The belief gives them hope. And hope is a big part of progress. It bothers me, however, that hope always seems to lie in the next world for most of these people—not in our world today. It certainly would make it a depressing world if it were the case that there is no hope for humanity.

The quest for salvation and the desire to spread the word of God by Christians as part of that quest is another thing which comes to mind when I read Stowe’s novel. I am always a bit taken aback by the ideas of racial superiority that often accompanies these past humanitarian missionary acts. I am reminded of the early Spanish explorers landing in Central America and encountering the Aztec and Maya Indians. After many debates, it was determined that the Indians were inferior humans, not savages, and they did have souls, but they desperately needed to be saved. This idea preceded the mass destruction of Central American science, which in some cases were actually quite advanced in comparison to Europe’s at the time. But the Europeans were right; the Central American Indians were in a sense, inferior. The region in which they lived was a very secluded region, and the people who lived there had not been exposed to many of the germs and diseases that afflicted other parts of the world. As a result, exposure to the early Spanish explorers proved to be devastating to them.

We can extrapolate this feeling of superiority to the slaveholders in America and see what we have as a result. The story now changes. Part of the reason for importing slaves from Africa, was their ability to work and, ultimately, their “resistance” to diseases—especially mosquito borne ones. When one looks at the age of races and the “travelling” of various diseases, one finds that Africans have developed many stronger immune defense systems than people whose origins lay elsewhere have. Thus, when the Americans began importing slaves from Africa, it was often the case that the African slaves were more resistant to diseases such as malaria than were the Americans. The Africans were proving to be the superior race.

The travelling of disease has changed dramatically with increased world travel, and such ideas about racial superiority in immune systems no longer hold very well. Ideas of racial superiority on the basis of ideas such as purity and “right” however, do still persist to a degree that I feel is too large. The mid 1800s were important to begin breaking down some of these prejudices, and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin did a good job of illustrating that although someone may be of a different color, we are all humans, and as such, we should make a conscious effort to behave humanely towards each other. Of course, none of our acts would mean anything at all if we did not believe them.