, and kate chopin had written a story where she thinks her husband dies. and women really didn't have -- their security was their marriage, their security was in that household, and so if we're really thinking about the pivotal moment of women in history at that time, this was absolutely monumental, to say the least. >> no question about t. thank y you, octavia. you had to get a sense of what she was doing and why she was doing it. in terms of the merit -- thank you. i was there, i was just messing with you guys. in terms of the literary merit of her work, many people came after her for saying she created very simplistic stereotypes. but that was indeed her purpose. a lot of people said, this was very poor novel writing, how dare you, i understand what you're trying to do but you can do it better. i think they missed a point. she was trying to tell a story in as stark of detail as she possibly could, in kind of a relief map of what happened. let's go through the major characters of "uncle tom's cabin," yes? we have uncle tom. uncle tom is presented as what