The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Uncle Toms Cabin - Literature review Example

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Uncle Toms Cabin are two of the most popular and historically significant novels in the corpus ofwhat Dr. Henry Louis Gates has called the tradition of American Slave literature. (Gates, 2002) As even to this day, America has not been able to come to terms collectively with slavery as part of American history. Slavery is seen as a type of historical footnote to the American dream despite the lives that it destroyed and the suffering it inflicted. As it was “legal” at the time, at most, contemporary audiences can look back and view slavery as a moral atrocity, or a moral failure, but one that was repaired historically by the abolitionist spirit which relates to the unbounded progress of our faith in reason in society. Thus, in looking at the ways in which Frederick Douglass represents slavery literarily and Harriet Beecher Stowe relates examples of its horrors, the expectation is that Frederick Douglass will provide a more accurate portrait of the historical grievances of slavery than Stowe, who approaches the institution from the view of a reformer, publicist, and novelist. Nevertheless, in that Stowe and Douglass both shared and largely were writing to the same audience, the literate, white citizens who may be converted through literature to understanding of progressive causes, their writings can be analyzed in accordance with the aspects of progressive themes that they shared. Finally, the effectiveness of each approach and its appeal will be analyzed in the way Stowe and Douglass phrase characters, situations, and ideas to the audience. Comparing their manner of similarities and differences can assist the reader and critic in understanding the social dynamics of slavery that entrapped both sides in positions and sufferings they could not avoid through civil war. Critically important in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the manner with which she draws the white stereotype of the poor, agricultural settler family and their relation to slavery and how it contrasts with or can be viewed in the same continuum with the larger racist institutions of society. Fundamentally, the racist view in America is to be studied historically with Stowe, even as she represents the white abolitionist sentiment, for it is from the shared views on race that dominated America at the time that the institution arises and perpetuates itself in inhumanity. Through this, the novel is opened up to Stowe’s own racial stereotypes by the way she presents Uncle Tom in the white woman’s eyes. In the first chapter, Tom is fundamentally introduced as a “Man of Humanity”. From this, Uncle Tom’s Cabin can be set in the American humanist tradition as it reflected progressive ideas from the European enlightenment particularly through abolitionism. “Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly worth that sum anywhere,—steady, honest, capable, manages my whole farm like a clock… Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He got religion at a camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really did get it. Ive trusted him, since then, with everything I have,—money, house, horses,—and let him come and go round the country; and I always found him true and square in everything." (Stowe, Ch.1, p.14) The important point emphasized from the very start by Stowe is that Tom is a good man, a human man, with a heart and feelings that are complex. He is a religious and trustworthy man, even to the slaveholding whites who buy and sell him as property. Stowe begins by depicting the division between white views – progressive and racist – that some are more open to seeing the humanity of slaves and some are downright, fundamentally evil. As the Civil War is not a massive uprising of slaves seeking liberty but a feud between white views on race, this division is important and with Stowe, it is the theme she posits from the first lines. Thus, just as Stowe begins by discussing her family, white culture, and the divisions within it as reflected in greater society, so too does Frederick Douglass begin his book discussing his own family, as a slave, and the tortures, violence, and tragedy inherent in the tale. Where Stowe’s characters search for their identity by projecting views onto black culture, Douglass describes himself as literally robbed of knowledge of identity, be it of African culture, his parentage, or his self. Just as Stowe described division within the white community when it came to expressing racial views, so too did Douglass describe a divided black community, some of whom identified with their masters, the system, and assimilated the identity forced upon them as slaves. “It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyds slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyds slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepsons slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyds slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepsons slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor mans slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!” (Douglass, Ch.3) Later black authors and cultural writers would go into great detail deconstructing the assimilation of racial stereotypes in black culture, though Frederick Douglass in many ways is among the first to discuss it formally in America. Contrast this with the way critics have accused Stowe of forcing the racial stereotype into the collective mind of the white community through her work. For example, the New York Times write in 1877, after the Civil War: “Still later the original slave who furnished the model for Mrs. STOWE’S Uncle Tom became almost as numerous as the entire male colored population of the Southern States. The business required little capital beyond white hair and effusive piety, and with this inexpensive stock, multitudes of aged Africans rapidly acquired what, to them, was a comfortable fortune. For nearly twenty years the original Uncle Tom was to be found all over the Northern and Middle States. People who did not like one kind of Uncle Tom on the ground that he was too obviously addicted to whisky, or too prone to forget his exact age, and to mention having met Mrs. STOWE some years before her birth, could search among the other Uncle Toms until they found the exact kind of Tom that their imagination had painted.” (NY Times, 1877) The Times is describing a mass movement of what they see as African Americans accepting or assimilating the “Uncle Tom” identity in their own dress, identity, and appearance – and serving white America, particularly the North reared in Stowe’s books, as paid servants under a new type of racism. For in this example, what Douglass describes in assimilation of the slave master’s identity by the African American community is reproduced post-Civil War in exactly the same manner, but Stowe is leading the stereotype through her literary depictions. From this comes the critique that Stowe failed somehow in not appointing blacks to full equality in her portraits, even in the ideal, and from this the subservience and ingrained submissive humility of Tom. “With extraordinary synthesizing power, Uncle Toms Cabin presented Afro-American characters, however derivative and distorted, who leaped with incredible speed to the status of literary paradigms and even cultural archetypes with which subsequent writers - black and white - have had to reckon... Although Stowe unquestionably sympathisized with slaves, her commitment to challenging the claim of black inferiority was frequently undermined by her own endorsement of racial stereotypes.” (Sundquist, 1986) Thus, this is the main and most significant historical and moral criticism of Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, namely that despite her abolitionist views and good intentions, Stowe’s own portrait of “blackness” was racist and as such harmful. Compare this to how Douglass critiques African American culture in his own work for assimilating slave identities. Primarily, a conception of African American identity sculpted from the mind and views of a middle aged, Protestant housewife, no matter how full of good intentions, is not acceptable for the black man or woman. The African American individual, as represented by Douglass, must build, vocalize, and articulate his or her own identity by going beyond white racism, white identity, and the white education system with its symbols of knowledge. Yet, does Douglass accomplish this with his own life, or will it be for later African American writers and critics to draw these points historically? Douglass asks: “I have never approved of the very public manner in which some of our western friends have conducted what they call the ~underground railroad,~ but which I think, by their open declarations, has been made most emphatically the ~upperground railroad.~ I honor those good men and women for their noble daring, and applaud them for willingly subjecting themselves to bloody persecution, by openly avowing their participation in the escape of slaves. I, however, can see very little good resulting from such a course, either to themselves or the slaves escaping; while, upon the other hand, I see and feel assured that those open declarations are a positive evil to the slaves remaining, who are seeking to escape. They do nothing towards enlightening the slave, whilst they do much towards enlightening the master.” (Douglass, Ch.XI) This is the same question that historians and readers ask about Harriet Beecher Stowe. In her massive publicity and historical fame, is there a true and just portrait of the black man and woman, or are there stereotypical representations that reflect the racism of the era? To answer succinctly, both views are present in Stowe. Is her work, as Douglass asks, intended towards enlightening the master, or enlightening the slave? It is clear that Stowe is fundamentally appealing to white civil consciousness, and not speaking to black people directly as their leader or liberator. In final view, it seems as if both readers and historians would demand too much from Harriet Beecher Stowe. Yet, as even Lincoln recognized her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin as being influential in creating the public opinion environment that led to the war over slavery, she is vitally important as a U.S. writer. In the way that her characters are easily recognized as racial stereotypes by culture today, Stowe can be viewed as historically a product of her times. “As early as April 1852, and even before the book was in the hands of the reviewer, the Frederick Douglass Paper assured its readers that the book was ‘a thrilling Story, from the accomplished pen of Mrs. Stowe’ and that ‘[t]he friends of freedom owe the Authoress a large debt of gratitude for this essential service rendered by her to the cause they love.’ The review, which may have been penned by Douglass but also by his colleague Julia Griffiths, proposed that ‘the touching portraiture [Stowe] has given of ‘poor Uncle Tom,’ will, of itself, enlist the kindly sympathies, of numbers, in behalf of the oppressed African race, and will raise up a host of enemies against the fearful system of slavery’.” (Brown, 2007) Thus, even Douglass and his abolitionist newspaper at the time realized what a powerful message Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin carried for the contemporary society, even if they too saw “poor old Uncle Tom” as something of a stereotypical character. In the greater context, the abolition of slavery was a much more important issue, but in time African Americans have become more vocal in opposing the white stereotype of black identity, and more conscious of the dangers inherent in assimilating white views into African American identity. Sources Cited: Brown, Lois (2007). African American Responses to Uncle Toms Cabin. National Endowment for the Humanities & the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, CT, 2007. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. Douglass, Frederick (1845). Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. SunSite, Berkeley, Last update 5/14/97. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. Gates, Henry Louis (2002). The Classic Slave Narratives. Signet Classic: Penguin, 2002. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1852). Uncle Tom’s Cabin. University of Virginia, 1998-2009. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. Sundquist, Eric J. (1986). New essays on Uncle Toms cabin. Cambridge University Press, 1996. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. Unsigned (1877). Uncle Toms. The New York Times, 30 March 1877. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. Read More