Uncle Toms Cabin Analytical Essay Essay Example for Free

Uncle Toms Cabin Analytical Essay Essay Critic Moira Davison Reynolds describes Uncle Toms Cabin as skillfully and artistically constructed propaganda that contributed mightily to massive reform (ix). As such, its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe has been placed among the greatest Americans that ever lived and at one time was the most famous woman in the country (Reynolds 146). Born on June 14, 1811, to a remarkably accomplished family of orators, educators and pioneering social activists, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher followed in the footsteps of her politically active family and took up the banner of anti-slavery reform. Her passion for the cause is said to have come to her as a result of her time spent in Ohio observing the results of the fugitive slave laws (Reynolds 159). Uncle Toms Cabin is a text intended to shock its readers into rejecting Slavery. At the same time, it is intended to raise the sympathy of its audience by humanizing the slave. This paper discusses how Stowe achieves each of these things in her novel and how effective she was. This paper also investigates the role of family feeling in Stowes novel: it serves the conflicted purpose of motivating white Americans to fight against slavery while also providing the basis for imagining the nation as a reassuringly racially pure family home. The Family Feeling in Rejecting Slavery and Humanizing the Slave At the center of Stowes abolitionist argument is the fact that slavery destroys families. The separation through sale or death by neglect of children from parents, husbands from wives, sisters from brothers, receives her harshest and most consistent criticism throughout the novel. In her final appeal to her readers, Stowe writes, The writer has given only a faint shadow, a dim picture, of the anguish and despair that are, at this very moment, riving thousands of hearts, shattering thousands of families, and driving a helpless and sensitive race to frenzy and despair (384). The two precipitating events that set the novel in motion are framed as instances of slaverys disregard for any family feeling. Mr. Shelby is driven by financial concerns to separate Tom from his wife and children and George Jr. from his parents, regardless of any claims to affection for his slaves or promises he has made for their manumission. In addition to following the diverging fates of Tom and Eliza, the novel produces what James Baldwin called a catalogue of violence (496), providing numerous examples of familial destruction at the hands of ruthless slave traders and vicious owners. One illustrative example is the story of Lucy, a woman purchased by the slave trader Haley as he takes Tom down to the New Orleans market early in the novel. When Haley sells her son, Lucy waits until dark and throws herself into the river. Her suicide is never mentioned again, but the tragedy of her death is one element of the constant backdrop of familial destruction as Tom travels deeper into slave territory. In addition to feeling horror at these and other stories throughout the novel, the reader is meant to feel particular distaste for those characters who are not so moved by such willful destruction of family ties. For example, Mr. Shelby describes Haley the slave trader as someone who would sell his own mother at a good percentage not wishing the old woman any harm, either (30). Haleys villainy is expressed not just through his actions, but through his lack of proper familial affections. Marie St. Claire, Evas deeply self-absorbed mother, is almost as much a villain as Haley, not least because she refuses to believe that her slaves love their families in the same way that white women do. She complains, Now, St. Claire really has talked to me as if keeping Mammy from her husband was like keeping me from mine. Theres no comparing in this way. Mammy couldnt have the feelings I should. Its a different thing altogether as if Mammy could love her dirty babies as I love Eva! (151). The corruption of families by slavery is more than a series of individual tragedies; it is a blight on both the civic and spiritual life of the nation as a whole. Stowe writes, Nothing of tragedy can be written, can be spoken, can be conceived, that equals the frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly acting on our shores, beneath the shadow of American law, and the shadow of the cross of Christ (384). The scenes of family destructions to which Stowe refers in the passage picture the worst travesties of maternal care she can imagine infanticide and suicide of mothers who chose death for themselves and their children over slavery. The solution to the crisis of slavery lies in a restoration of proper family feeling, a call which Stowe frames in national terms. In her most extended direct address to the reader in the last chapter of the novel, she writes an incantatory call to the men and women of America, and particularly the mothers of America to draw on their own experience of parental love as a means through which to fight for the end of slavery. She writes, And now, men and women of America, is this a thing to be trifled with, apologized for, and passed over in silence? And you, mothers of America, you, who have learned, by the cradles of your children, to love and feel for all mankind, by the sacred love you bear your child; I beseech you, pity those mothers that are constantly made childless by the American slave-trade! And say, mothers of America, is this a thing to be defended, sympathized with, passed over in silence? (384) In the logic of her call, to fight against slavery is to fight for not just individual families, but for the duty and love that families are divinely sanctioned to inspire and protect. To love anyone properly, to be moved to defend the rights of other mothers to love their own children, one must first draw from their own experience. If that familial love is as strong as it is supposed to be, then slavery would be unconscionable. The tactic of mobilizing sentiment is used throughout the book to force the reader to consider slavery in light of her own family life. When Tom is separated from his children at the beginning of the novel, the narrator breaks from the event to address the reader and call up his or her own feelings over lost children. After describing Toms tears, she writes, just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man, and you are but another man (34). By seeing Tom as but another man, the reader must temporarily abandon the distinctions that make slavery if not racism possible, although this temporary suspension is challenged by the novels resolution. Stowe also calls on the readers to shift their frame of reference when considering the sale of human beings by addressing those slaves for sale at the New Orleans auction through the nominal forms of family: Then you shall be courteously entreated to call and examine, and shall find an abundance of husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and young children, to be sold separately, or in lots to suit the convenience of the purchaser' (283). The reformist impact of the image is meant to lie in the use of affectionate names for family juxtaposed to the utilitarian language of commerce. Such moments call up the readers indignation; other moments are meant to inspire the readers admiration. Another method through which Stowe humanizes slaves is stressing their familiar bonds and characteristics. In many ways, George and Eliza are ideal parents and spouses. Eliza, described as beautiful, educated, and kind, risks her life to prevent losing her son to Haley, the slave trader. Her dedication is distilled in the famous dash across the ice floes to get into Ohio from Kentucky (52). George, also handsome and intelligent, is willing to risk his life to protect Eliza. When they are being pursued by Haley and Tom Loker, George exclaims, And now, Eliza, Ill give my last drop of blood, but they shall not take you from me. Whoever gets you must walk over my dead body (165). George defines his masculinity through his marriage, telling Eliza, your loving me, why, it was almost like raising one from the dead! Ive been a new man ever since! (165). Conversely, Elizas femininity is framed through her ability to tame to proper proportions Georges occasional violent and irreligious impulses by enclosing them within domesticity. In their first scene together in the novel, George comes to Eliza in a rage, telling her about the numerous offenses committed by his masters. He hints several times that he might retaliate with violence, and Eliza urges him to control his temper through prayer: What are you going to do? O, George, dont do anything wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right, hell deliver you. I aint a Christian like you, Eliza; my hearts full of bitterness; I cant trust in God. Why does he let this be so? (15) George can only respond to Elizas influence when they have escaped slavery and are able to establish as sense of home while living with the Quakers. Home is described as a circle within which proper family and religious sentiment can develop. This, indeed, was a home, home, — a word that George had never yet known a meaning for; and a belief in God, and trust in his providence, began to circle his heart, as, with a golden cloud of protection and confidence, dark, misanthropic, pining, atheistic doubts, and fierce despair, melted away. (122). This passage describes the kind of familial sentiment that Stowe continually tries to incite in her readers throughout the text. According to Stowe, white families fail most consistently throughout the novel. Her calls for the readers to sympathize with the suffering of African American families under slavery is in part an attempt to move them to action, but it is also an attempt to get them to reform their own family feelings and connections to feel right not just about the issue of slavery, but about how to behave as a member of a white Christian family and nation. After all, the first scene of the novel shows us the tactless slave trader sullying the white family parlor, and throughout the novel, white family feeling fails, despite the best intentions of their members. The Shelbys provide an example. Mrs. Shelby treats her slaves with kindness, and imparts to them the value of domesticity. When she finds out that Mr. Shelby has contracted to sell George Jr. , she exclaims, I have taught them the duties of the family, of parent and child, and husband and wife; and how can I bear to have this open acknowledgement that we care for no tie, no duty, no relation, however sacred, compared to money? (29). She does her best to protect both Tom and Eliza, but in the end she cannot change her husbands decision. But the Shelbys failures are not unique. Husbands like Shelby and St. Claire mismanage money or die prematurely and the familys slaves must be sold down the river. Mothers are either ineffectual like Mrs. Shelby or actively awful like Marie St. Claire: as a result, families are separated and beatific children die of consumption. Two of the most powerful figures of maternal influence in the novel the dead mothers of St. Claire and Simon Legree can be read as symbols of retribution and reform. Legree is driven mad by the thought of the perfect love that his mother once had for him (323), but that perfect love is only a fearful torture, and in fact it drives him to redouble his efforts to rape Emmeline. He declares, Curse me, if I think theres any such thing as forgetting anything, any how, — hang it! Im lonesome! I mean to call Em. She hates me the monkey! I dont care, —Ill make her come! (323). St. Claire describes his mother as divine (195), and it is under the influence of her spirit that he begins to take the legal steps to manumit his slaves. But her influence arrives too late; St. Claire is stabbed to death while out on a walk, and Tom is sold down the river once again. The novel is plagued by such incidents, and at each stage they elicit sympathy from the readers, sympathy explicitly structured by the family form. The tragedy we are meant to feel most strongly is the failure of white families to function properly. Conclusion It can be concluded that Uncle Toms Cabin was effective in rejecting slavery and raising the sympathy of its audience by humanizing the slave. Stowe achieves each of these things in her novel through investigation of the role of family feeling: it serves the conflicted purpose of motivating white Americans to fight against slavery while also providing the basis for imagining the nation as a reassuringly racially pure family home. The restoration of George and Eliza Harris’ family after their harrowing escape from slavery and their decision to repatriate to Liberia are rendered in the service of the novels desire to rehabilitate white domesticity on both the familial and the national scale. Works Cited Baldwin, James. Everybodys Protest Novel. 1955. Harriet Beecher Stowe s Uncle Toms Cabin. Ed. Elizabeth Ammons. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1994. 495-501. Reynolds, Moira Davison. Uncle Toms Cabin and Mid-Nineteenth Century United States. North Carolina: McFarland, 1985. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Toms Cabin. 1852. Ed. Elizabeth Ammons. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1994.