Truthful Pictures

Download or read book Truthful Pictures written by Diane N. Capitani and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Truthful Pictures examines novels and sermons written in the antebellum South, in particular those written after the 1851 publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It begins with a historical overview of the function of women writers in American literature in order to help locate sentimental fiction within its historical context by analyzing the works of Southern female authors such as Caroline Hentz and Mary H. Eastman. Though they followed in Harriet Beecher Stowe's footsteps, authors like Hentz and Eastman used their voices in conjunction with Christian ideology to support slavery. The text then explores how Holy Scripture was perverted in Southern sermons by pulpit leaders such as Thorton Stringfellow and Alexander McCaine in order to allow the continued enslavement of one group by another, using religion to defend white partriarchy as the normal human way of life. By examining antebellum sermons and writings and their influence on sentimental novels, Truthful Pictures shows how religious texts reinforced political ideologies in the wake of increasing racial tensions between the North and the South. Book jacket.