UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

Northamerican Literature and History- USAL 2020

Why did H Beecher Stowe write Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

 Abolitionist purposes
 Intended to show the evils of slavery
 “Stowe had elevated the role of women in her novel, presenting

domesticity as a blessed haven from the crassness of the

industrial world. In her view, traditional women’s work—the
order and beauty of homemaking—was not drudgery. One of
her aims in writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to show how slavery
disrupted households and the sacred ties that existed between
parent and child, husband and wife.” (H Bloom, Uncle Tom’s Cabin)
Genres of the novel

 Abolitionist text
 Realistic novel
 Sentimental/melodramatic novel
 Gothic? Where do we see features of the Gothic genre in Beecher’s novel?
 Domestic fiction/ women’s fiction
 It shares features of the slave narrative
Literary Influences (Intertextual Connections)

 The Bible
 Slave narratives: Frederick Douglas (He was a friend of hers)

Harriet Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl)

 Sentimental novels of Beecher’s time
 Condition of England novels
 Southern fiction: the one depicting the life on the plantations as happy.
Ideal readers for Beecher’s novel

 Who did H Beecher Stowe have in mind when writing her famous novel?
 Why did she intend to address this segment of the population?
Some Reactions to the work

 In her time, Stowe was accused of making up

details about slavery most likely to lead Northerners to more

vigorous antislavery efforts. In 1853 she was forced to refute

the accusations by publishing A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,

which cited eyewitness accounts (Bloom’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin)

 A later generation also attacked the novel, arguing that Stowe's stereotyped characters
revealed her own historically conditioned racism. For the African American author James
Baldwin and others the term "Uncle Tom" came to imply a black person who pandered to a
racist white power structure.

 More recently, Stowe's novel sparked an interest in uncovering other nineteenth-century

women writers. (Feminist Literary criticism)

 Readers also noted the novel's geographical sweep from New Orleans to Canada, Paris, and
Liberia; its Christian radicalism; and its relationship to slave narrative
Connections Between Stowe’s Novel and the Context of Slavery

 1850 Fugitive Slave Act

 Slaveholders taking out mortgages on slaves
 Paternalism and Slave holding (Which characters seem to spouse this position?)
 Sexual relations between planters and slaves: trauma of sexual abuse looming over
female slaves (Who suffers this in the novel?. Is it described explicitly or insinuated?
 Physical cruelty in slaveholding
 Religion (Christianity) in slaves
 Slave traders
 Planters and their treatment of slaves
Connections Between Stowe’s Novel and the Context of Slavery

 The position of the North vs that of the South as regards slavery

 What made someone black? How black did someone need to be in order to be
traded as a slave?
 Moral Justification/ grounds for slavery
 The underground railroad: meaning. Where is this depicted in the novel?
 Bounty hunters
Why can we read/interpret Beecher’s classic as Feminist?

 One of the themes is the moral power and sanctity of women • Because Stowe saw
motherhood as the "ethical and structural model for all of American life," and also
believed that only women had the moral authority to save the United States from
the demon of slavery, another major theme of Uncle Tom's Cabin is the moral power
and sanctity of women.
 Through characters like Eliza, who escapes from slavery to save her young son and
eventually reunites her entire family, or Little Eva, who is seen as the "ideal
Christian", Stowe shows how she believed women could save those around them
from even the worst injustices.
 While later critics have noted that Stowe's female characters are often domestic
cliches instead of realistic women, Stowe's novel "reaffirmed the importance of
women's influence" and helped pave the way for the women's rights movement in
the following decades.
What was your experience while reading this work?
 What did it stir in you?
 Where you moved at all?
 Did it contribute to your
understanding of the reality
of slavery and racism in the
United States?
 Have you read any other
works describing slavery?