UNCLES
REMUS AND HIS TALES OF BRER RABBIT
FROM THE 1946 WALT DISNEY FILM "SONG OF THE
SOUTH"
In the 1880s Joel
Chandler Harris began to publish
whimsical, imaginative stories that accurately
reproduced local Black folktales in authentic
language. The stories centered on the character
of Uncle Remus, a former slave who is the servant
of a Southern family. To entertain the young son,
Uncle Remus tells him stories about animals that
act like humans, such as Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox,
and Brer Bear. With these stories and other works
depicting Southern life, Harris became one of the
first American authors to use dialect to provide
an important record of Black oral folktales in
the Southeastern United States.
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