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Dean Winchester

Miss Hernandez

Ninth Grade Literature and Composition

10 Nov 2015

Secrets at Uncle Toms Cabin

Cassandra Clare once said, Lies and secrets, they are like a cancer in the soul. They

eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind. Although most of people would agree

that keeping secrets can be necessary at times, overall, society encourages us to share things.

In the song, Uncle Toms Cabin, the singer challenges this idea by presenting a speaker who

witnesses a crime, but are unable to report it to the authorities. Warrant in the song Uncle

Toms Cabin uses narration, visual imagery and situational irony to discuss that secrets can be

necessary to survive.

In the song, the use of narration helps the audience see that secrets must be kept to

survive. Narration poetry usually tells a story, and to tell a story there must be characters and

setting. At the beginning of the song, the speaker establishes these two things. Just for the

record lets get the story straight/ Me and Uncle Tom were fishin it was getting pretty late/ Out

on a cypress limb above the wishin well/Where they say it got no bottom say it take you down

to hell (1-4).Here the author is describing that the speaker and his uncle are fishing at night. By

saying this he is showing who the story will be about and where it will take place. The setting

makes the audience think of a dangerous time and place where bad things are likely to happen

in the narrative. While the speaker doesnt tell us what the secret is yet, the phrase lets get the

story straight, lets the audience know that this is a confession. Usually, when people confess

that means there is a secret being revealed that could have big consequences. It comes out in
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the next stanza that the consequences could even cost the speaker his life. To reveal the nature

of the secret he begins to describe exactly what happened that night.

The band uses visual imagery to show the importance of keeping a secret. Early in the

song, the band establishes the setting in the swamp, and then the speaker describes what he

saw Two men walking in the pale moonlight/ Sheriff John Brady and Deputy Hedge/ Haulin two

limp bodies down to the waters edge (6-8). This describes how the sheriff and the deputy are

throwing dead bodies into the pond at night. This is visual imagery because there is a

description that includes the people, the time of day, and what they are doing so the reader

could imagine it. The image of a sheriff and deputy hiding bodies would be a secret that most

people would be afraid to share because of what the authorities might do in retaliation. This

shows that for the speaker if he wants to survive he will have to keep this secret. The author

then begins to discuss the crisis of who could the speaker possibly tell the secret to.

At this point in the song, Warrant uses situational irony to express how a key to survival

is keeping secrets. Situational irony is when the expectations of the audience are not met, but

instead a twist ending is presented. The speaker and his uncle manage to leave the crime

scene and make it back to Toms Cabin. The speaker and his uncle then have the following

conversation. Oh my God, Tom, who are we going to tell?/ The Sheriff, he belongs in a prison

cell (23-24). At this point the speaker wants to figure out who they can report the police to, but

his uncle replies, Keep your mouth shut, thats what were going to do/ Unless you want to wind

up in the wishing well too (25-26).Here the uncle explains that there is no one that they can tell

their secret to. This is an example of situational irony for several reasons. One reason is that in

most instances, the police are searching for who has murdered people and disposed the bodies,

not the other way around. Another reason that this is situational irony is because most people

listening to the story would assume that the uncle encouraged his nephew to tell the story
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because the song begins with Just for the record lets get the story straight (1) which means

he is telling the story to someone. This shows that, according to the uncle, the speaker must

keep this secret if he doesnt want to be killed.

It is true that some might view the song as being a song about crime and police

corruption and not about secrets. Admittedly, there is a Sheriff committing a crime and a deputy

helping him, but there is no conversation about why or how they got there. However, the song

doesnt go beyond that night, and so it is hard to know how long the crime is kept a secret and if

the whole department is corrupt. Therefore, it is unclear what kind of statement the author is

trying to make about crimes and law enforcement authors.

Although many people believe that secrets are dangerous to keep, Warrant in the song

Uncle Toms Cabin discuss that secrets can be necessary to survive. Through the use of

storytelling, rich description, and twist ending the audience can easily see that in the dangerous

situation of being on the wrong side of lawmen, keeping a secret, at least for a little while, might

be for the best. Although by the end of the song, the audience hearing the song is let in on the

secret and given the details, the truest message might be to keep a secret until the best time

presents itself. Warrant might agree with Clare and want to end the spread of the Sheriff and

Deputys destructive presence in town by having the speaker share the story with all of us.