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Pink and White Tyranny: a Society Novel
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program.
344 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1871
11 people are currently reading
186 people want to read
About the author
Harriet Beecher Stowe
1,526 books1,416 followersGreat political influence of
Uncle Tom's Cabin
, novel against slavery of 1852 of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, American writer, advanced the cause of abolition.
Lyman Beecher fathered Catharine Esther Beecher, Edward Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, another child.
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, an author, attacked the cruelty, and reached millions of persons as a play even in Britain. She made the tangible issues of the 1850s to millions and energized forces in the north. She angered and embittered the south. A commonly quoted statement, apocryphally attributed to Abraham Lincoln, sums up the effect. He met Stowe and then said, "So you're the little woman that started this great war!" or so people say.
AKA:
Χάρριετ Μπήτσερ Στόου (Greek)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet...
Lyman Beecher fathered Catharine Esther Beecher, Edward Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, another child.
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, an author, attacked the cruelty, and reached millions of persons as a play even in Britain. She made the tangible issues of the 1850s to millions and energized forces in the north. She angered and embittered the south. A commonly quoted statement, apocryphally attributed to Abraham Lincoln, sums up the effect. He met Stowe and then said, "So you're the little woman that started this great war!" or so people say.
AKA:
Χάρριετ Μπήτσερ Στόου (Greek)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet...
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 2, 2023
**Featured on the historic fiction podcast The Gibson Girl Review! Listen as my cohost Amy Drown and I discuss this novel at gibsongirlreview.com/season-1-episode-1**
4 stars & 4/10 hearts. I’m a huge fan of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s style, but I only ever read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and somehow I was unaware that she had any other novels. So I was very excited to read this!
Besides her good style, Stowe has EXCELLENT sarcasm and she really killed it here. Her omnipresent author voice, typical of the era, fit in perfectly with her snark as she addressed the readers and their concerns at various happenings in the book. She also did an excellent job mocking her very foolish characters. With all that, she still packed a heavy punch with her message—a very good and timely one—and the overall impression of the book, although it is light and humorous, is serious, which is quite an accomplishment.
As Stowe predicted, I was “quite out of patience” with Lillie. You couldn’t quite despise her because she truly didn’t know better sometimes, but I definitely wanted to shake her—hard—MANY times and she could be quite bad. As for John, he was an amiably blind fool at the worst, and a mistreated darling at the best, which represents the gamut of my feelings concerning him. He was, really, a very good man, but I got so mad at him for bending to Lillie so much and letting her drive him around. It was his real love that made him so sweet, but it still drove me crazy. Show some backbone, bro. Can’t you see how deeply she is manipulating you? Meanwhile, Gracie was a dear and Rosie another, and I was so happy to see Harry redeemed. Also Charlie & Co. were despicable.
The plot of this story is that John, a sober and christian middle-aged man, falls in love with a saintly-looking woman who looks twenty but is twenty-seven—which says everything about her. She’s a little, fluffy, white, innocent, helpless kitten with a core of steel and brains of conquest. Throughout the story John realizes his mistake while Lillie drives him hither and thither and there against his common sense and convictions because miss is used to luxury and her own way, and she’s determined to be America & France’s love child: a flirt up to marriage and a flirt after marriage. Harriet Stowe paints a sobering picture of the total chaos a house is thrown into when a man cannot guide his house and his wife is a fool.
Besides this message, there was also the condemnation of the French culture that was taking over America in the 1860s-1890s. As a French-Canadian who knows French history and culture, I understood Stowe’s anxiety, and it is sad her warning wasn’t heeded. To this day America is fascinated by France—and one can trace through history how the old country’s influence really brought the new one into a downward plunge. Louisa May Alcott, some might remember, had the same objections as Stowe, but she veiled her comments a little more. Stowe paints everything starkly, and without whitewash. It is an interesting study.
Overall, as a story, or as history, this was an enjoyable novel and one I will probably be reading again.
Content: a married man and a married woman have an affair; a married MC tries to have one.
A Favourite Quote: “If we contend with and fly from our duties, simply because they gall us and burden us, we go against every thing; but if we take them up bravely, then every thing goes with us. God and good angels and good men and all good influences are working with us when we are working for the right. And in this way, John, you may come to happiness; or, if you do not come to personal happiness, you may come to something higher and better. You know that you think it nobler to be an honest man than a rich man; and I am sure that you will think it better to be a good man than to be a happy one…. And then, dear brother, it will all be over soon, this life-battle; and the only thing is, to come out victorious.”
A Favourite Beautiful Quote: The snow had been all night falling silently over the long elm avenues of Springdale. It was one of those soft, moist, dreamy snow-falls, which come down in great loose feathers, resting in magical frost-work on every tree, shrub, and plant, and seeming to bring down with it the purity and peace of upper worlds.
A Favourite Humorous Quote: He had no doubt of the usual orthodox oak-and-ivy theory in relation to man and woman; and that his wife, when he got one, would be the clinging ivy that would bend her flexible tendrils in the way his strong will and wisdom directed. He had never, perhaps, seen, in southern regions, a fine tree completely smothered and killed in the embraces of a gay, flaunting parasite; and so received no warning from vegetable analogies.
4 stars & 4/10 hearts. I’m a huge fan of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s style, but I only ever read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and somehow I was unaware that she had any other novels. So I was very excited to read this!
Besides her good style, Stowe has EXCELLENT sarcasm and she really killed it here. Her omnipresent author voice, typical of the era, fit in perfectly with her snark as she addressed the readers and their concerns at various happenings in the book. She also did an excellent job mocking her very foolish characters. With all that, she still packed a heavy punch with her message—a very good and timely one—and the overall impression of the book, although it is light and humorous, is serious, which is quite an accomplishment.
As Stowe predicted, I was “quite out of patience” with Lillie. You couldn’t quite despise her because she truly didn’t know better sometimes, but I definitely wanted to shake her—hard—MANY times and she could be quite bad. As for John, he was an amiably blind fool at the worst, and a mistreated darling at the best, which represents the gamut of my feelings concerning him. He was, really, a very good man, but I got so mad at him for bending to Lillie so much and letting her drive him around. It was his real love that made him so sweet, but it still drove me crazy. Show some backbone, bro. Can’t you see how deeply she is manipulating you? Meanwhile, Gracie was a dear and Rosie another, and I was so happy to see Harry redeemed. Also Charlie & Co. were despicable.
The plot of this story is that John, a sober and christian middle-aged man, falls in love with a saintly-looking woman who looks twenty but is twenty-seven—which says everything about her. She’s a little, fluffy, white, innocent, helpless kitten with a core of steel and brains of conquest. Throughout the story John realizes his mistake while Lillie drives him hither and thither and there against his common sense and convictions because miss is used to luxury and her own way, and she’s determined to be America & France’s love child: a flirt up to marriage and a flirt after marriage. Harriet Stowe paints a sobering picture of the total chaos a house is thrown into when a man cannot guide his house and his wife is a fool.
Besides this message, there was also the condemnation of the French culture that was taking over America in the 1860s-1890s. As a French-Canadian who knows French history and culture, I understood Stowe’s anxiety, and it is sad her warning wasn’t heeded. To this day America is fascinated by France—and one can trace through history how the old country’s influence really brought the new one into a downward plunge. Louisa May Alcott, some might remember, had the same objections as Stowe, but she veiled her comments a little more. Stowe paints everything starkly, and without whitewash. It is an interesting study.
Overall, as a story, or as history, this was an enjoyable novel and one I will probably be reading again.
Content: a married man and a married woman have an affair; a married MC tries to have one.
A Favourite Quote: “If we contend with and fly from our duties, simply because they gall us and burden us, we go against every thing; but if we take them up bravely, then every thing goes with us. God and good angels and good men and all good influences are working with us when we are working for the right. And in this way, John, you may come to happiness; or, if you do not come to personal happiness, you may come to something higher and better. You know that you think it nobler to be an honest man than a rich man; and I am sure that you will think it better to be a good man than to be a happy one…. And then, dear brother, it will all be over soon, this life-battle; and the only thing is, to come out victorious.”
A Favourite Beautiful Quote: The snow had been all night falling silently over the long elm avenues of Springdale. It was one of those soft, moist, dreamy snow-falls, which come down in great loose feathers, resting in magical frost-work on every tree, shrub, and plant, and seeming to bring down with it the purity and peace of upper worlds.
A Favourite Humorous Quote: He had no doubt of the usual orthodox oak-and-ivy theory in relation to man and woman; and that his wife, when he got one, would be the clinging ivy that would bend her flexible tendrils in the way his strong will and wisdom directed. He had never, perhaps, seen, in southern regions, a fine tree completely smothered and killed in the embraces of a gay, flaunting parasite; and so received no warning from vegetable analogies.
February 21, 2023
FEATURED on The Gibson Girl Review historic fiction podcast! Listen at gibsongirlreview.com/season-1-episode-1
Ugh!!! This book was sooooo close!!! I adored Stowe's sparkling wit and sharp sarcasm throughout the story, and was wholly engrossed in these characters' and dying to see which would prevail -- the tyrant or the tyrannized -- only to reach the end and feel like it was a cop-out. :-P But this is still a book worth reading, and I am looking forward to reading more Stowe novels!
Ugh!!! This book was sooooo close!!! I adored Stowe's sparkling wit and sharp sarcasm throughout the story, and was wholly engrossed in these characters' and dying to see which would prevail -- the tyrant or the tyrannized -- only to reach the end and feel like it was a cop-out. :-P But this is still a book worth reading, and I am looking forward to reading more Stowe novels!
July 18, 2009
I found this book surprisingly complicated, as Stowe's stated agenda for her work -- a demonstration that easily acquired divorce would be disastrous for women rather than liberating -- doesn't actually match up with what the book is saying.
It's a straightforward story she tells: an upright, noble New England man (John) marries a "lovely little bit of pink and white," (Lillie) expecting her to be the angel in the house that both her appearance and his ideals dictate. She's actually manipulative, deceitful, materialistic, and intensely passive-aggressive. The novel chronicles the slow disintegration of John's ideals as Lillie's selfishness undermines his beliefs about women and his ability to live up to his own moral code. Not much happens in terms of events -- this is no sensation novel, there are no exciting chase scenes or surprise twists -- but John's continued inability to cope with the reality of his marriage creates a train-wreck that I was watching with pained interest.
What made the book fascinating to me, however, was the tension between Stowe's argument that John was a good man unfairly victimised by a bad woman, and her simultaneous argument that Lillie was exactly what the male society of the time wanted a beautiful woman to be. For every moment of sympathy for John and her plight, there's a voice pointing out that Lillie's frivolity fulfills male desire, and that the men have no right to expect better from their creations so long as they create so badly. Yet Lillie is still framed as the tyrant, John as the victim... and Stowe can't seem to reconcile these two views. She both espouses and condemns Victorian ideologies of womanhood, and this creates a book that is confusing, complex, and absolutely worth further study. Someday I would like to write a paper on it, perhaps using some of what I learned about realism from my recent reading of In the Court of the Pear King.
It's a straightforward story she tells: an upright, noble New England man (John) marries a "lovely little bit of pink and white," (Lillie) expecting her to be the angel in the house that both her appearance and his ideals dictate. She's actually manipulative, deceitful, materialistic, and intensely passive-aggressive. The novel chronicles the slow disintegration of John's ideals as Lillie's selfishness undermines his beliefs about women and his ability to live up to his own moral code. Not much happens in terms of events -- this is no sensation novel, there are no exciting chase scenes or surprise twists -- but John's continued inability to cope with the reality of his marriage creates a train-wreck that I was watching with pained interest.
What made the book fascinating to me, however, was the tension between Stowe's argument that John was a good man unfairly victimised by a bad woman, and her simultaneous argument that Lillie was exactly what the male society of the time wanted a beautiful woman to be. For every moment of sympathy for John and her plight, there's a voice pointing out that Lillie's frivolity fulfills male desire, and that the men have no right to expect better from their creations so long as they create so badly. Yet Lillie is still framed as the tyrant, John as the victim... and Stowe can't seem to reconcile these two views. She both espouses and condemns Victorian ideologies of womanhood, and this creates a book that is confusing, complex, and absolutely worth further study. Someday I would like to write a paper on it, perhaps using some of what I learned about realism from my recent reading of In the Court of the Pear King.
February 5, 2009
Stowe does it again: preachy and righteous, and, unlike "Uncle Tom's Cabin", there was very little going on in the plot of this book. The moral of the story is that divorce shouldn't be got so easily, and the book is structured in such a way that for every bit of action, there is tons of moral commentary from Stowe. Why wasn't she just honest about what she was doing? Call it a book of sermons and save it for Sundays. At points, I was writhing on the couch because it was such agony to read. I skimmed the last 50 pages because I simply could no longer take it seriously. She comments toward the end that readers might be out of patience with the amount of patience the suffering husband had for his selfish and unloving wife or for the wife herself. No...I was out of patience with Stowe's sermonizing and oversimplification of "bad" and "good." Do not waste your time on this piece of 19th-century tripe!
May 28, 2012
I'm giving it 3 stars because it's worth reading if you only know Stowe through _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. It's a didactic, moralizing novel that may make modern readers scream at its characters, but it's also an accurate portrait of Stowe's beliefs and those of the culture in which she lived. Too, there are a couple of nice digs at the expected roles of men and women in raising children at the time, and a great deal of blame for the way the main character behaves is placed squarely on men, something quite unusual for the moralizing tales of the day.
June 13, 2019
Like a refreshing drink of water on a very hot day.
These are the kinds of stories I loved as a girl. They helped me to be better and kinder. I’ve missed them, and this won’t be the last of this kind that I read. I hope to begin reading them again. If you love Louisa May Alcott, you will love this.
These are the kinds of stories I loved as a girl. They helped me to be better and kinder. I’ve missed them, and this won’t be the last of this kind that I read. I hope to begin reading them again. If you love Louisa May Alcott, you will love this.
January 4, 2012
A truly gifted author.
December 20, 2023
Very entertaining, especially for a book presented by its author as nothing more than "a story with a moral". Except that Beecher Stowe knows exactly how to tell a story, and with surprising wit too. John Seymour, scion of an eminently respectable New England family, makes the fatal mistake of marrying a coquette instead of the sweet and beautiful girl next door, and lives to regret it. Lillie is a greedy girl with enough charm to attract plenty of admirers, but no husband rich enough to satisfy her, until she manages to dig her claws into naive and upstanding John. Soon enough she starts to spend his money recklessly instead of teaching Sunday school with him. Little by little, John realizes that his idol is nothing like the Madonna he imagined. After reluctantly bearing him 3 children, Lillie dies with just enough remorseful words to make John almost truly sorry to lose her. There isn't any depth to the character of Lillie, who is just calculating and selfish through and through, while the good characters are almost cartoonish stalwarts, yet there's a liveliness to the writing which elevates the material.
April 18, 2020
Over all good
This is a work of fiction with a moral to it at the end. The world view of the author is Christian. I feel that fact will determine if you like it or hate this story. The language is a little antiquated and tedious at times, but the overall tone tone is edifying. There is good take away in this story even in our stressful modern times. It is an enjoyable read if you are not put off by the "pietistic quietism" in some parts of the book. ( the author gives a "backdoor endorsement of Felenon.).
This is a work of fiction with a moral to it at the end. The world view of the author is Christian. I feel that fact will determine if you like it or hate this story. The language is a little antiquated and tedious at times, but the overall tone tone is edifying. There is good take away in this story even in our stressful modern times. It is an enjoyable read if you are not put off by the "pietistic quietism" in some parts of the book. ( the author gives a "backdoor endorsement of Felenon.).
March 22, 2022
Harriet Beecher Stowe wants you to know she disapproves of:
- trading on your looks
- attempting to rise above your working-class origins
- not being into reading theology
- knowing a lot about clothes
- remodeling your house
- booze
- parvenus
- French novels
- women who don't want to have children
- divorce
I'm sure none of this is personal at all.
(There is redemption through chronic illness in this, for those of us who are ill and want to avoid that. HBS wouldn't have thought much of me anyway, woman not interested in being a mother.)
- trading on your looks
- attempting to rise above your working-class origins
- not being into reading theology
- knowing a lot about clothes
- remodeling your house
- booze
- parvenus
- French novels
- women who don't want to have children
- divorce
I'm sure none of this is personal at all.
(There is redemption through chronic illness in this, for those of us who are ill and want to avoid that. HBS wouldn't have thought much of me anyway, woman not interested in being a mother.)
November 12, 2024
I'd never thought a classic book would keep me on my toes like that. The pages flowed by without me noticing and the story proceeded smoothly, until the ending with the explanation of the moral, as anticipated in the introduction, that is totally understandable for the society of the time. And the bittersweet conclusion of the story wasn't so obvious.
In the end, I felt a sort of connection with all the characters in the novel and I was so sad to let them go! I'll read more books by this author!
In the end, I felt a sort of connection with all the characters in the novel and I was so sad to let them go! I'll read more books by this author!
March 30, 2019
I love this book and it is in my top 10 favorites of all time books. The redemptive love portrayed, and the reminder that no matter what anyone else does your duty still is to do right... is beautiful beyond words. A must read for any high school education.
May 29, 2023
A pleasant surprise-I heard a discussion of this book on The Gibson Girl Review podcast and decided to give it a try. Well worth the read!
November 11, 2011
No vampire could have sharper fangs to penetrate the throat of feminine selfishness, shallowness and vainglory than does Harriet Beecher Stowe! Was she a traitor to her sex? Lillie Ellis, the principal character of this book, would most certainly have said so, at least until the final scene of this touching story when she repents on her death bed. This book can only be understood in the context of the conflicts over feminist goals between Lucy Stone and the American Woman Suffrage Association as opposed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the National Woman Suffrage Association. One of the points of disagreement was over liberalisation of divorce laws and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this novel as a parable explaining why she supported Stone in rejecting the loosening of restrictions on divorce.
While she was at it she created some very memorable characters! John Seymour, the hapless idealistic lawyer and capitalist who falls in love with and marries Lillie, his sister Grace and neighbor Rose Ferguson who serve as Christian foils to Lillie's selfishness, Mrs. Follingsbee, the wealthy social climber, Harry Endicott, who Lillie loved but rejected because of his lack of wealth. The male characters are less believable than the female and Stowe's moralising may be a bit off-putting to some, but what a fascinating portrait of New England mores in the 1870's!
There is even a bit of prophecy! to wit:"People may mourn in lugubrious phrase about the Irish blood in our country. For our own part, we think the rich, tender, motherly nature of the Irish girl an element a thousand times more hopeful in our population than the faded, washed out indifferentism of fashionable women, who have danced and flirted away all their womanly attributes, till there is neither warmth nor richness nor maternal fulness left in them,-- mere paper dolls, without milk in their bosoms or blood in their veins. Give us rich, tender, warm-hearted Bridgets and Kathleens...We are not afraid for the republican citizens that such mothers will bear to us. They are the ones that will come to high places in our land..."
While she was at it she created some very memorable characters! John Seymour, the hapless idealistic lawyer and capitalist who falls in love with and marries Lillie, his sister Grace and neighbor Rose Ferguson who serve as Christian foils to Lillie's selfishness, Mrs. Follingsbee, the wealthy social climber, Harry Endicott, who Lillie loved but rejected because of his lack of wealth. The male characters are less believable than the female and Stowe's moralising may be a bit off-putting to some, but what a fascinating portrait of New England mores in the 1870's!
There is even a bit of prophecy! to wit:"People may mourn in lugubrious phrase about the Irish blood in our country. For our own part, we think the rich, tender, motherly nature of the Irish girl an element a thousand times more hopeful in our population than the faded, washed out indifferentism of fashionable women, who have danced and flirted away all their womanly attributes, till there is neither warmth nor richness nor maternal fulness left in them,-- mere paper dolls, without milk in their bosoms or blood in their veins. Give us rich, tender, warm-hearted Bridgets and Kathleens...We are not afraid for the republican citizens that such mothers will bear to us. They are the ones that will come to high places in our land..."
June 30, 2016
In her landmark novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe exposed the workings of the society of plantation life, slave owners, and the rich of that time. Nineteen years later, she wrote Pink and White Tyranny, an expose of the upper crust society of 19th century New England Society. In this story, she tells of John Seymour, a very moral and righteous, good wealthy man who falls in love with Lillie Ellis, a willful, predatory young woman who only marries John for his money. Stowe portrays these two, and the people who surround them, with much skill. Her description of Lillie and her society friends is thoroughly fleshed out, and we want to shake some sense into Lillie; likewise, Stowe’s portrait of John and his equally good sister Grace makes us commiserate with him and hope that he either reforms his wife or rids himself of her. This is a quick moving tale of greed, pomposity, and the blindness that comes from marrying for money, rather than love—and, on John’s part, the blindness of marrying for love without fully knowing his bride. Stowe’s writing is, in many cases, exquisite. Some of her descriptions are pure poetry. As this is a novel written in the 1870s, it does suffer somewhat from the writing conventions of the time, but I got caught up in the story and soon found a rhythm that transcended the sometimes stilted tone. All too often, the lesser novels of great writers are neglected; this novel should not be one of them.
February 26, 2023
✔️Published in 1871.
Pink and White Tyranny: a Society Novel is a remarkable story of a self-centered gold-digging girl and how she ultimately winds up wedding to an ill-fated man. Harriet Beecher Stowe brilliantly showcases her writing talents in this novel with her clear writing style.
This is a good novel to read on a rainy day whilst sitting by the hearth.
🟣 Media form: Kindle version.
🟢 Media form: Project Gutenberg .
Pink and White Tyranny: a Society Novel is a remarkable story of a self-centered gold-digging girl and how she ultimately winds up wedding to an ill-fated man. Harriet Beecher Stowe brilliantly showcases her writing talents in this novel with her clear writing style.
This is a good novel to read on a rainy day whilst sitting by the hearth.
🟣 Media form: Kindle version.
🟢 Media form: Project Gutenberg .
July 19, 2012
This was a decent read. It was a fairly typical society novel. Man....it was so interesting to read about societal norms back then. The rules about how to behave and such. Very interesting. Gotta say, these characters are...very over-written. But that's typical. Lillie is a terrible person. And John is a perfect person. But, I enjoyed the read. And it was fun to read something by Stowe that wasn't Uncle Tom's Cabin.
July 20, 2012
I understand what Stowe is trying to preach about here. And I think it is still an important message because people get divorced very easily. However, I wish she could have figured out a way to make her characters more likable and more relatable.
August 9, 2011
I enjoyed this little book probably because it is like watching a Turner Classics movie. You are transported to another time and place so completely. A morality soap-opera.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews