Uncle Remus: The Controversy of the Famous Slave Tales
Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and Song of the South: first thoughts might be Splash Mountain, the Walt Disney World attraction, or the timeless tales published by Joel Chandler Harris. These stories are becoming lost in history, as political correctness has become imperative to culture today. Society and academics have censored Joel Chandler Harris’ works about Uncle Remus due to worries regarding his unintentional undermining of African-American culture, his citation absences, and how his usage of the stories created a false illustration of slave life.
Joel Chandler Harris, born on December 9, 1848, began his life in Putnam County, Georgia. In 1862, he worked as a printing apprentice on a plantation where he heard the slaves tell stores and tales (Bickley 13). He edited for assorted newspapers and worked many different positions. Harris learned how to write as he worked these jobs by typesetting (Bickley 13). Later, Harris became the associate editor of a local newspaper where he published his first Uncle Remus sketch (Bickley 13). Four years later, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was …show more content…
Harris would have argued the stories simply recounted what he heard. In the tales of Uncle Remus slaves were shown as tricksters “… It is not surprising or accidental that the tales more easily and abundantly collected in Africa and Afro-Americans in the New World were animal trickster tales” (Levine 102). “It was in their animal trickster tales that slaves expressed their wildest hopes and fears” (Levine 131). “… The majority of ‘beast fables’ were derived from the practice of substituting the names of real individuals whom it would have been impolitic or dangerous to mention” (Levine 102). “… The animals in these tales were easily recognizable representations of both specific actions and generalized patterns of human behavior” (Levine
Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and Song of the South: first thoughts might be Splash Mountain, the Walt Disney World attraction, or the timeless tales published by Joel Chandler Harris. These stories are becoming lost in history, as political correctness has become imperative to culture today. Society and academics have censored Joel Chandler Harris’ works about Uncle Remus due to worries regarding his unintentional undermining of African-American culture, his citation absences, and how his usage of the stories created a false illustration of slave life.
Joel Chandler Harris, born on December 9, 1848, began his life in Putnam County, Georgia. In 1862, he worked as a printing apprentice on a plantation where he heard the slaves tell stores and tales (Bickley 13). He edited for assorted newspapers and worked many different positions. Harris learned how to write as he worked these jobs by typesetting (Bickley 13). Later, Harris became the associate editor of a local newspaper where he published his first Uncle Remus sketch (Bickley 13). Four years later, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was …show more content…
Harris would have argued the stories simply recounted what he heard. In the tales of Uncle Remus slaves were shown as tricksters “… It is not surprising or accidental that the tales more easily and abundantly collected in Africa and Afro-Americans in the New World were animal trickster tales” (Levine 102). “It was in their animal trickster tales that slaves expressed their wildest hopes and fears” (Levine 131). “… The majority of ‘beast fables’ were derived from the practice of substituting the names of real individuals whom it would have been impolitic or dangerous to mention” (Levine 102). “… The animals in these tales were easily recognizable representations of both specific actions and generalized patterns of human behavior” (Levine