[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> George Cruikshank —> Next]

Description of Topsy

She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything in the room. Her mouth, half open with astonishment at the wonders of the new Mas'r's parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity. She was dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging; and stood with her hands demurely folded before her. Altogether, there was something odd and goblin-like about her appearance, — something, as Miss Ophelia afterwards said, "so heathenish," as to inspire that good lady with utter dismay. . . . — Chapter 20, "Topsy."

Passage illustrated

On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very best scarlet India Canton crape shawl wound round her head for a turban, going on with her rehearsals before the glass in great style, — Miss Ophelia having, with carelessness most unheard-of in her, left the key for once in her drawer.

"Topsy!" she would say, when at the end of all patience, "what does make you act so?"

"Dunno, Missis, — I spects cause I 's so wicked!"

"I don't know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy."

"Law, Missis, you must whip me; my old Missis allers whipped me. I an't used to workin' unless I gets whipped."

"Why, Topsy, I don't want to whip you. You can do well, if you've a mind to; what is the reason you won't?"

"Laws, Missis, I 's used to whippin'; I spects it's good for me."

Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made a terrible commotion, screaming, groaning and imploring, though half an hour afterwards, when roosted on some projection of the balcony, and surrounded by a flock of admiring "young uns," she would express the utmost contempt of the whole affair. — Chapter 20, "Topsy."

Commentary

Published simultaneously in Boston and Cleveland by two Jewett firms (John P. Jewett and Jewett, Proctor, and Worthington respectively) in 1852, the novel by pro-abolitionist seminary student Harriet Beecher Stowe helped shape attitudes towards slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, as reflected in the popular British press. Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era, an abolitionist periodical, starting with the 5 June 1851 issue. In London, the story appeared in thirteen weekly parts, issued by John Cassell, in 1852, with two illustrations for each number by George Cruikshank. The first London volume edition appeared in May 1852, selling 200,000 copies on the first day. Topsy, one of the chief female characters, is a thoroughly mischievous but endearing, in contrast to the angelic Evangeline St. Clare, privileged but naive daughter of a Louisiana plantation owner; the pair appear in the title-page vignette designed by Cruikshank for the first British edition of the novel.

The scene of this seventeenth illustration is Miss Ophelia's rooms in the St. Clare plantation in Louisiana. The St. Clares' cousin from Vermont, Miss Ophelia is in principle an abolitionist; she has been brought south to tend to Evangeline St. Clare, who is dying, probably of consumption (tuberculosis). Although the old maid is a devout, pious, and hard-working Christian, she harbours the mistaken notion that Blacks are inferior. To counteract her prejudice, St. Clare gives Miss Ophelia a slave of her own, Topsy, who will be a challenge to educate.

Topsy is a mischievous, clever little girl who hasn’t been raised with any moral or intellectual instruction. In fact, she’s been raised in complete subjugation, beaten and whipped with any instrument that comes to hand by her heartless masters at a "low restaurant" that slave-owner Augustine St. Clare passes regularly. Suspecting that the girl is being mistreated. St. Clare decides purchase her from the restaurant-owner. However, what St. Clare then does with her is not entirely fair, as he makes a present of her to his Vermont cousin, the abolitionist-minded Miss Ophelia. Topsy's truculent conduct and petty thefts only serve to reinforce Ophelia's conviction that Black people are inherently inferior, morally as well as intellectually. Although St. Clare intends that his Northern cousin should train and instruct Topsy, the girl herself educates her mistress about racial equality and common humanity. Thus, although Cruikshank's illustration is apparently racist, depicting Topsy as if she is a careless, wanton, and destructive child, the English artist is in fact realising the Stowe text fairly accurately: Topsy is delighted with her new-found freedom from whipping and cruel treatment, and Miss Ophelia (just entering, left) is aghast at the scene in her room. Topsy thoroughly dominates the scene, as her dancing causing chaos; she cavorts in front of the mirror, oblivious to the overturned chair and open scarf-box on the floor at her feet. Since Stowe's emphasis is on the ensuing dialogue between mistress and servant, the illustration extends the text considerably by elaborating on Topsy's thoughtless vanity and exuberance.

Bibliography

Burton, Anthony. "Cruikshank as an Illustrator of Fiction." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 92-128.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Cruikshank, George. "Eliza Crosses the Ohio on the Floating Ice." The Newberry: "Digital Collections for the Classroom, The American Renaissance in Context." http://dcc.newberry.org/items/eliza-crosses-the-ohio-on-the-floating-ice.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, and George Cruikshank (illustrator). Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly. With Twenty-Seven illustrations on Wood by George Cruikshank. London: John Cassell, 1852.

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.

---

Victorian
Web

Illus-
tration

George
Cruikshank

Next

Last modified 14 July 2017