Book: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Posted on August 4th, 2009 in Books, Life, Religion | 3 Comments »
This post is a part of The Great American Novel Challenge. If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge, feel free to jump right in next month.
For the second book in my search for the Great American Novel, I attempted to answer a question that lingered in my head for years: “Why is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin consistently mentioned in History classes and almost never mentioned in English classes?” The book is clearly an influential novel. It’s likely that every high school history textbook mentions this book, and they probably do so right next to the supposed quip Abraham Lincoln said upon meeting Stowe early in the Civil War: “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” In fact, I was inspired to read it because of the role it played in the first quarter of Team of Rivals, which is a history/biography of Abraham Lincoln’s rivals for the Republican nomination for President in 1860. It could have been the instructors I had or the books I’ve read, but at some point in my public education I began to wonder how this novel became a piece of history rather than a work of literature.
For those who may not be familiar with the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery book published in 1852, eight years prior to the civil war. It sold incredibly well at the time it was published, and has shaped the course of civil rights in America straight through to the present. The book itself describes virtually every aspect of life as a slave in a strikingly graphic fashion, even to the modern reader. The book tells of slaves escaping, being sold, being cared for, and being beaten as well as masters being cruel, kind, and indifferent. The book follows the life of one slave in particular: Tom, the title character and intended hero of the book. Tom is a Christian slave, and Christianity plays an extremely important role in the novel. For example, Tom consistently expresses compassion rather than hatred for his masters, including the cruel Simon Legree. Although the book is ostensibly about Uncle Tom, many other slaves and masters feature prominently and the book paints a rather comprehensive picture of “life among the lowly” as the subtitle indicates.
The answer to my long-running question about the book was readily apparent, even on the first page. Stowe’s style simply does not meet with the traditional understanding of novels in literature. It is a strange mix of polemic essay and fictional story. For example, she refers to the reader, to herself, and sometimes ambiguously to both using the pronoun ‘we.’ She doesn’t bother to hide her plot, which is presented directly and not particularly complicated. In fact, the plot feels quite straightforward and there are few real surprises. The story reads easily and feels more like someone telling a tale in a Northern formal room of their trip to the South than a traditional novel. In short, the answer to my question is this: “Literature snobs have decided that the book doesn’t deserve to be in their quaint little club.” This is probably true of many genuinely good books that are easy to ready while still conveying a moral tale.
Women’s literature in the nineteenth century has become synonymous with authors like Austen and the Brontë sisters. They wrote about the role of women in society, and they remain undeniably influential. Unfortunately, like the American male stereotype, I find their books to be impenetrable. I consider myself to be a fairly well-educated man, but chances are that I will never actually understand books like Pride and Prejudice. Unlike the other novels by nineteenth century women writers I’ve attempted to read, Uncle Tom’s Cabin comes across clearly and perhaps a bit too directly. If I may be so bold as to quote every English teacher I’ve ever had, “If the reader doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, then it is your fault and not theirs.” For my money, this makes Stowe the better writer when compared to Austen and the Brontës. At the least, Stowe should be considered the greatest American female author of the nineteenth century. (Quick: Can you name another?)
Many of the faults identified by critics of Uncle Tom’s Cabin may be due to its own popularity. For example, critics say that it created lasting stereotypes of African Americans. These stereotypes appear in the novel, and they certainly made me uncomfortable while reading them, but assigning the blame for the creation or even the popularization of these stereotypes to Harriet Beecher Stowe seems unwarranted. Correlation does not imply causation. Something did popularize these stereotypes, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a very easy target, but I would need more convincing evidence to start assigning blame. Stowe was certainly not the only person writing about slavery at the time.
Another concern with Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the modern use of the name ‘Uncle Tom’ as an insult deriding someone who is at best too willing to go along with an oppressor and at worst complicit in the acts of the oppressor. Tom was intended to be a noble Christian slave, and the compassion Tom shows for his captors flows from this role. Consider this Biblical passage:
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.
1 Peter 2:18 (ESV)
This could be interpreted as ‘pro-slavery’ or as condoning slavery and some further argue that the Bible as a whole views slavery as acceptable though I’m not sure how anyone could read the Old Testament and miss all the parts about God freeing slaves. I would argue that this passage is rightly interpreted as the correct individual response to slavery as a slave because violence begets violence. Here are a few more modern quotes along similar lines:
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
Gandhi
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The key to understanding Tom’s actions is to recognize that he is acting as Christian individual should and not as a Christian society as a whole should. Tom recognizes that violence is not the answer. He knows that he is responsible for his actions and not responsible for those of Simon Legree. Further, he recognizes that Simon Legree is responsible for Simon’s actions, and Tom knows the consequences of those actions will be truly severe in God’s eyes. In the final chapter, Stowe addresses the readers directly and describes how she believes a Christian society should respond, but she does not contrast this Tom’s actions. It is perhaps the only thing in the book not presented in the most direct fashion possible. As a result, modern Americans recognize the truth in the words of twentieth century civil rights advocates like Gandhi and Dr. King, and yet they use ‘Uncle Tom’ as a form of derision. I must lay the blame at the foot of the writer.
Although I enjoyed reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I would not say that it is the Great American Novel if only because it is too laden with the depressing truth of human nature: we are more than capable of great evil. The novel is certainly an American one, if only because of the subject matter and the ensuing controversy surrounding the novel. (Americans are nothing if not fans of controversy.) To me, the Great American Novel might well uncover uncomfortable truths, but it would also inspire us to overcome them. Uncle Tom’s Cabin doesn’t inspire the imagination so much as serve as an in-your-face moral compass.
Two books down; eleven to go!
My books in the challenge thus far are:
July 2009: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
August 2009: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)