Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Criteria for a “masterpiece” 
 

·It engages in serious major or universal themes.

·It develops those themes to a certain level of intelligence, sophistication, and complexity—that is, it does not provide easy answers or evasions.

·Great literature expands the moral imagination.

·It provides a rich variety and depth of characterization.

·It often presents a dense, detailed, and convincing sense of reality—whether psychological reality, an epic sense of setting, or the complexities of moral life.

·It must have an underlying architectonic integrity—that is it must exhibit throughout an inherent design, or what Aristotle called dianoia.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Issue of Evil

We read Uncle Tom’s Cabin today through an overlay of twentieth-century atrocities—the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet gulags, Hiroshima, My Lai, Burundi, the Balkans…

Stowe recognizes the psychological destruction wrought on the human being by unremitting degradation, torture, and violence.The root of alienation is the reduction of the person to an object, which is accomplished by torture or heavy, routinized labor.

How do we deal with the existence of political evil (in this case, slavery)?

Possible responses:

·George Harris – atheistic approach—A benevolent God would not permit such atrocities as slavery to exist.

·Uncle Tom – Christian approach—Suffering is redemptive and evil will be atoned for.Optimism—faith in the healing powers of love as demonstrated in Eva’s theology and Tom’s behavior.It is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.(Death—p. 409, 411, 412)

Christ-like Rachel:  Stowe declares in her climactic image of this maternal savior: Rachel Halliday "never looked so truly and benignly happy as at the head of her table.  There was so much motherliness and full-heartedness even in the way she passed a plate of cakes or poured a cup of coffee, that it seemed to put a spirit into the food and drink she offered.  Transforming ordinary food into a sacrament, Rachel Halliday, in a scene that calls to mind Christ's ministry at the Last Supper, suggests how restorative, how spiritually nourising, mother rule might be.

·Cassy – Violence is the only means by which evil can be vanquished.Cassy resolves to kill Legree and she enlists Tom’s aid.She has drugged Legree’s brandy and provided an axe for Tom to do the deed (she fears she is not physically strong enough to pull it off.)But Tom refuses, saying “good never comes of wickedness” and that we must “love our enemies.”Cassy bases her escape plan on her knowledge of Legree’s rear of demonic supernatural.She creates a “garret” into a “home” (p. 404) and creates a bond with Emmeline

·Mrs. Shelby (and a number of Quakers who operate stations on the Underground Railroad) advocate nonviolent resistance and personal acts to alleviate suffering.Non-violence as a politicaltactic.Look at the Quaker home (Chapter 13)The home is agrarian, nonviolent, egalitarian, and above all, matrifocal.At its center is “the ample, motherly form” of Rachel Halliday, active opponent of slavery and non-racist in deed as well as word.This woman dominates Stowe’s utopian settlement.The center of the community is the home; the center of the home is the kitchen—“large, roomy, neatly-painted; the center of the kitchen is Rachel’s well-worn rocking chair: “a larger sized one, motherly and old whose arms breathed hospitable invitation.This big homey throne symbolizes Rachel’s power and centrality.Therefore it is telling that at the beginning of Chapter 13, we meet in this rocker "gently swaying back and forward, her eyes bent on some fine sewing...our old friend Eliza."  In the bosom of Rachel rocks the abused young slave mother.  the images suggests rest and joy, but also motion: motion that stays in place, that is non-linear, non-masculine, circular: motion that does not seek variety and change, but instead repeats the old, healing, maternal rhythms over and over.  Stowe gives these maternal values prime importance by using the image to open her chapter on "The Quaker Settlement," which sets up the heroic interpretation of motherhood that controls the whole novel.

·St. Clare counsels an apathetic stances.He says that there is nothing one can do to end suffering and oppression.St. Clare comes to sense the possibility of divine retribution and comes to feel that apathetic good people like himself will be swept away by God’s wrath as soon as those more actively evil.Tom provides him with the relevant scriptural passage, Matthew 26: 34-40 – Those will be “curse…into everlasting fire” A principal defense of slavery—astonishingly as it may seem today—was the argument that blacks so not feel or think like whites and therefore are not as sensitive to pain and suffering.“These critters ain’t like white folks, you know,” Haley remarks; “they gets over things.”

Stowe handles the problem of evil on several levels: theological, moral, economic, political, and practical

• Theological: George raises the basic question of the problem of evil: why does an allegedly just deity allow evil to exist? “I ain’t a Christian like you Eliza,” he says, “my heart’s full of bitterness; I can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?” (17). How does the author resolve the theological issue of God’s apparent silence in the face of atrocious evil? Page 189 – How do you refute George’s argument in the first paragraph?

• Moral: Stowe evinces the modern existentialist awareness that evil manifests itself in the objectification of human beings, their transformation into commodities or things for economic use. The slaves at Legree’s plantation are kept in a degraded and debased condition. One of the first actions Legree takes toward Tom is to divest him of his personal belongs—always a means of demoralizing a person. (Christ was stripped naked when he was hanged on the cross.) The slaves have no love, no religion, and no hope—the are dehumanized even toward one another. Also sexual commodification of black women.- Sambo and Quimbo have been trained in savageness and brutality.

• Stowe’s principal assumption in UTC is that the roots of evil are economic. Most wrongdoing and evil behavior in the novel are shown to have monetary motives. Stowe links slavery directly with capitalism. The best example of this is Simon (the name Simon is the root for simony, wrongful sale of religious blessing) Legree’s plantation. The section opens in the Louisiana slave warehouse where Tom and several other St. Clare slaves are awaiting sales. Legree is an absolute capitalist tyrant, unchecked by the restraining cultural feminist ethic of white women—there are none on the plantation—or by rule of law. He has, in effect, turned the plantation into a slave labor camp where slaves are routinely worked to death. The ultimate destruction of the human personality occurs as a result of the heavy, alienated labor the slaves must perform at the Legree plantation.

• Political – Stowe dramatizes numerous examples of the confrontation between men’s tendency toward abstract rationalization and women’s toward compassionate concern about individual cases. Domestic ideology can be a political force. The domestic world is Stowe’s policical model for how society at large should operate. In particular, the home of the Quaker family provides a utopian glimpse of the perfect society: it is egalitarian, orderly, and infused with an atmosphere of mutual confidence and good fellowship. Stowe excoriates abstract legalistic discussions of slavery that ignore the reality of individuals’ suffering. 

• Practical – Can we call ourselves good if we do not do good? Many white women act on their principles to subvert the evil system. There must be a moral revolution. Cassy is a kind of Mary Magdalene; for five years she has been forced to serve as Legree’s concubine (and an alcoholic). She has tried to kill her master. She has killed one of her children. Her experience has left her bitter, defiant, and an atheist (p. 365, 394). She cannot pray