Uncle Tom's Cabin: a New Perspective - Assignment Example

? Uncle Tom’s Cabin- A New Perspective number Uncle Tom’s Cabin- A New Perspective Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin has for long been hailed as a significant anti-slavery novel. In fact, it may be well said that Beecher’s was one of very first works which overtly posited a view that criticized the moral outrages of slavery. The novel’s subscription to racist stereotypes notwithstanding its apparent opposition to slavery is however unsettling. While the question of authorial intent remains much debated, the thematic ambiguity of the novel lends itself to multifarious interpretations whereby one can read it entirely against its grain. The immediate contradiction lies in the title. The eponymous protagonist, Tom, a slave in Kentucky, is shown possess unsullied honesty, sense of service and unshaken faith in Christianity. The nomenclature is however more than incidental or innocuous. Suffixing Tom’s name with the seemingly innocuous ‘Uncle’, the novel essentially subscribes to a derogatory stereotype for the ever benign slave, complacent in his position of servitude. Equally problematic is Tom’s devout adherence to Christianity. Religion, or perhaps, distorted interpretations of religion, were often employed to perpetuate the Southern institution of chattel slavery. Tom’s contentment or sense of belongingness in the very society that oppresses him strikes me, as it would any contemporary reader, as extremely contrived. It is a rebellious or defiant Tom that one would anticipate emerging from the all-accepting Tom of the early sections of the novel. Such expectations are however thwarted as Stowe’s Tom remains unquestioning-a flat character throughout the narrative. In her description of Tom’s cabin, Stowe writes that “(the) wall over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant Scriptural prints and a portrait of General Washington.” (Stowe, 24) Both these objects reflect Tom’s desire for freedom and equality. The scriptural prints stand for his firm belief in Christian deliverance while Washington as one of the founding fathers of independent America is the perfect emblem of freedom. What one finds in these images is perhaps the author’s attempt to integrate Tom into the fabric of America’s history and society and also to prove his allegiance to the guiding principles of America. The attempt is however feeble. There is little that Tom and his brethren had during the age of slavery to celebrate about America. American independence did not mean independence for Black Americans and they were kept largely outside the bounds of the hegemonic White society. Thus Tom’s religious faith and apparent admiration of Washington seem both artificial and unconvincing. The novel also brings about what the critic Peter Stoneley aptly calls “sentimental emasculation” (Stoneley, 53). A close reading of the novel enable one to gauge that Tom does not express any significant opinions or even desires of his own. His views are essentially outlooks of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant America uncritically imbibed. One may argue that Tom’s improbable saintliness is more derogatory than enabling. By stripping him of spontaneous and natural human desires-anger, curiosity and sexual desire, the works emasculates him and renders him, quite paradoxically less human. The most immediate manifestation of this “sentimental emasculation” can be seen in the Tom-Eva relationship. The journey down the Mississippi river that Tom and Eva undertake imbues the narrative with an element of the picaresque. Despite the deep emotive connection between them, it is interesting to note that there is an obvious sense of hierarchy in the Tom-Eva equation. In his interactions with her, Tom acts as a catalyst to an intellectual and moral growth in Eva whereby she begins to abhor the institution of slavery. One cannot overlook the fact that the novel does not document any such transformation in Tom’s submissive temperament. Thus, by reducing the protagonist to a mere catalyst to larger psychological changes in a White woman and divesting him of any existential gravity, the novel puts its stature as an anti-slavery work in jeopardy. It is also pertinent to reassess the novel’s chief motif- Tom’s cabin. Towards the conclusion of the novel when Shelby decides to free his slaves, he urges them to always remember Tom’s cabin as a symbol of Christian love and service. Here one finds an instance of subjective interpretation of a symbol redolent with meaning. While Shelby views the cabin as a symbol that is to arouse awe and respect amongst his newly freed slaves, the symbol, to an African-American, can well stand for their historic deprivation and thus arouse anger, indignation and protest. The fact that the narrative privileges the White man’s interpretation of the symbol over that of the slaves betrays the vantage point from which the work is written. Furthermore, the cabin and its owner stand to represent a certain unquestioning compliance with the undemocratic social order of nineteenth-century America. Thus by hailing Tom as the ideal for all slaves, Shelby lays bare the anomalies in his apparently egalitarian agenda- slaves though freed are bound by the prescriptive ideas of what and how they ought to be. The stereotypical idea of the “good slave”, intended to be complimentary, is therefore a deeply and unequivocally racist concept. The dichotomy between the North and South is an important part of Stowe’s novel. It is significant that the two central narrative strands in the novel- the story of George and Eliza and the story of Tom have their denouements in different parts of America. It is significant that the first story has its end in the northern part of America, while the latter ends in the Deep South. Tom meets his fateful death a plantation in Louisiana. This makes one wonder what the repercussions of Tom’s escape into the North might have been. The fact that Stowe’s conception of the “ideal” slave is one who lives on in the South and silently bears the outrages of slavery rather than escape in a fit of passionate rebellion to the North, yet again highlights the lacunae in her seemingly democratic stance as an author. Christianity and Christian metaphors recur at numerous points in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In fact, one can detect several parallels between Christ’s crucifixion and the deaths of Eva and Tom. While Eva’s death leads to St. Clare’s conversion and Ophelia’s acknowledgement of her own racial bigotry, Tom’s death leads to the emancipation of all the slaves on Shelby’s farm. However, there lies a wide gulf between the predicaments of Eva and Tom as sacrificial Christ figures. Whereas Eva even in the moment of her death exercises a great deal of personal freedom and agency as she denounces slavery, Tom’s sufferings are hardships piled on him by the institution of slavery. It is well worth questioning if Tom’s woes are willfully borne or are in fact, the inevitable predicament faced by most slaves in the Deep South. Tom’s death is thus a moment which is conferred multiple meanings by both the White American characters and the White American author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, without essentially taking into consideration the lived experience and the perspective of the person they are reducing to a mere symbol. The overt religious overtones in the novel also have another crucially important consequence. In many parts of the novel, African-American slaves are shown to have a natural propensity to embrace Christianity. Their understanding of Christianity, lacking in theological depth is shown to possess much fervor and piety. The problematic nature of this depiction is pointed by Arthur Riss’ essay ‘Racial Essentialism and Family Values in "Uncle Tom's Cabin"’ as he writes- “In claiming that the Negro race is naturally a Christian race, Stowe appeals to her audience's belief that the Negro is a distinct race but then proceeds to define this biological uniqueness in terms of the moral values that her audience already privileges. Rather than repudiating racialism, Stowe seeks to intensify a particular brand of racialism.” (Riss, 513-40) Thus one can conclude by saying that though Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written purportedly as an anti-slavery novel and was in many ways ahead of its times, the racist essentialism of its themes and metaphors do often cause much indignation and censure amongst contemporary readers. The text however is rich in possibilities for “counter-readings” or reevaluations of its original intent. Works Cited Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Forgotten Books, 2008. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Vb_m_9wk7KcC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=wall+over+the+fireplace+was+adorned+with+some+very+brilliant+Scriptural+prints+and+a+portrait+of+General+Washington&source=bl&ots=V9CBenH9Nu&sig=B_ORnWBIhD_5WQ5K8BgNx_QmiVg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zp4JUMThEsamrAfH7vnJCA&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false Accessed 18th July, 2012. Pp 24. Stoneley, Peter. “Sentimental Emasculations: Uncle Tom's Cabin and Black Beauty”. Nineteenth-Century Literature 54 (1), 1999. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2902997 Accessed 19th July, 2012. Pp 53. Riss, Arthur. “Racial Essentialism and Family Values in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ”. American Quarterly 46 (4), 1994. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2713382 Accessed 19th July, 2012. Pp 513-40. Read More