San Juanita Eva Hernandez
Professor Valadez
English III
23 February 2012
The Role of Women in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
“O, ridiculous, Emily! You are the finest woman in Kentucky; but still you haven’t to know that you don’t understand business; - women never do, and never can …” –George Shelby, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The women in Uncle Tom’s Cabin are very powerful people, whether they are changing their own lives, or the lives of the people around them, and whether they are using their power for good or to further evil. In some cases, such as Mrs. St. Clare, the women inadvertently perpetrate evil, as Mrs. St. Clare denies her dead husband’s wishes, and sells Tom to Legree, despite Mr. St. Clare’s promise of freedom. However, most women in this story take control of things when the men seem to be making the wrong decisions. Mrs. Shelby fights with her husband over the sale of the slaves in the beginning because of the promise she’d made to Eliza that she would never split her family apart. Eliza decides to run away with her child to avoid having him sold into another home.
The novel, as a genre developed by women, is characterized by unchecked sentimentality and a thematic focus on love and domestic relationships.
In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when Mrs. Shelby asks to help her husband with the plantation finances he replies, “O, ridiculous, Emily! You are the finest woman in Kentucky; but still you haven’t to know that you don’t understand business; -- women never do, and never can … You don’t know anything about business, I tell you” (Stowe, 372). Even though Mrs. Shelby is very intelligent and has “a force of character every way superior to that of her husband” (Stowe), because she is a woman her husband will not even entertain the idea of allowing her to directly help him with business affairs; her place is in the domestic affairs of their home. Although women were perceived to be insignificant and completely unattached to the business affairs of men, Stowe suggests that this was not the case. Instead, she argues that, as wives and mothers, women have the ability to shape the morals, values and actions of the men around them.
A woman’s influence could be felt, not only within the realms of her immediate family, but in the plantation community as well. Women’s roles in men’s lives are considered so great that “conditions that produce unwomanly women subvert the natural order of things, for without women in their proper place as administrators of the home, the rest of society cannot function” (Jenkins, 174-175). Throughout her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe draws a parallel between the plight of enslaved African Americans and the repressed women of the time; both lack the rights and social standing of white males. (Haug)
Stowe uses her novel as a venue for “converting essentially repressive concepts of femininity into a positive (and activist) alternative system of values in which women figures not merely as the moral superior of man, as his inspirer, but as the model for him in the new millennium about to dawn”
Throughout the story Stowe uses female characters to speak about women’s rights and the roles of the men in their lives. Even though, at that time, women were viewed to be inferior and subordinate to men, they in fact shaped the men in their lives. Although Stowe does not say that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a specifically feminist work, the novel nonetheless is regarded as an example of early feminism. Stowe’s suggestion that women retained subtle but great power and influence over their husbands was not only empowering but revolutionary; this implication provided further fuel to the feminist arguments of the time. (Haust)
Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to protest the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. At a time when the public sphere was reserved for men and the domestic sphere for women, Stowe couldn't express her political views by voting, but she could write. What she wrote was a woman-centered novel, a novel in which women characters usually act more morally than their male counterparts and in which the narrator directly appeals to women readers in terms of their morality and motherhood. Stowe felt that women had a role to play in the slavery debate because slavery was a moral question, not just a political one.
In Chapter IX of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the heroine of Chapter IX, Senator Byrd's wife, gently expresses her opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act by "entreaty and persuasion," and admits to her husband that “I don’t know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe, the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.” (Stowe). The way in which Stowe holds up Mrs. Byrd and other pious and domestic women as models raises the question of whether Stowe's novel challenged or upheld her cultures strict gender roles.
Stowe's novel is considered to be a progressive text as women assert their roles as ''moral centers'' in order to cultivate social and political change. A character that powerfully demonstrates this is Mrs. Bird. Stowe is very careful in her description of Mrs. Bird, explaining that in contrast to her seemingly gentle nature, ''anything in the shape of cruelty would throw her into a passion'' (Stowe, 68). Mrs. Bird is more complex than the submissive iconic female figure. In her own home, Mrs. Bird acts as a sort of moral leader for her family and demonstrates a certain amount of control over her husband through her emotional sensitivity.
Mrs. Bird acts as a sort of ''moral tutor in the scene'' and ''disciplines her husband to judge with his heart rather than his head''
Knowing her audience would primarily be white women, Stowe played on their feelings of uneasiness and guilt over the treatment of slaves, especially those of the Northern white women who could help with the Abolitionist movement, by introducing her readers to seemingly real characters suffering from the injustice of slavery. This can be seen even in the style in which Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written; Stowe directly addresses her readers, forcing them to consider slavery from the point of view of the enslaved.
“If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning, – if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape, – how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom, – the little sleepy head on your shoulder, – the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?”
Stowe appeals directly to her reader, whom she assumes to be a white 19th century northern Christian mother. Forcing the reader to imagine herself in Eliza’s situation strengthens the reader’s sympathetic bond with Eliza and makes her suffering even more poignant.
“Expressive of and responsible for the values of its time, it also belongs to a genre, the sentimental novel, whose chief characteristic is that it is written by, for, and about women” (Tompkins 124-25). Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a sentimental novel; it was meant to appeal to the unsettled emotions that existed in the reader’s mind, creating and sense of guilt and injustices, making them see how slavery destroys human lives and families. Through the introduction of these Southern families, Stowe demonstrates how slavery corrupts and ultimately eliminates domestic stability.
“But what can any individual do? Of that, every individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do; -- they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this matter!”
Uncle Tom’s Cabin spoke to each individual Northerner who read its pages, forcing her to view slavery from a new perspective, sympathize with the slave characters, and relate the novel to things she knew all too well—family, sentimentality, and the Cult of Domesticity. Above all, Harriet Beecher Stowe wanted her white audience to take action against slavery.
“And you, mothers of America, – you who have learned, by the cradles of your own children, to love and feel for all mankind, – by the sacred love you bear your child; by your joy in his beautiful, spotless infancy; by the motherly pity and tenderness with which you guide his growing years; by the anxieties of his education; by the prayers you breathe for his soul's eternal good; – I beseech you, pity the mother who has all your affections, and not one legal right to protect, guide, or educate, the child of her bosom! By the sick hour of your child; by those dying eyes, which you can never forget; by those last cries, that wrung your heart when you could neither help nor save; by the desolation of that empty cradle, that silent nursery, – I beseech you, pity those mothers that are constantly made childless by the American slave-trade! And say, mothers of America, is this a thing to be defended, sympathized with, and passed over in silence? “(Stowe) Unsurprisingly, Stowe ends Uncle Tom’s Cabin with special appeals to free mothers to sympathize with slaves and to raise their children as abolitionists.
The important role of women, both in the home and in the public is widely expanded upon in Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The inner themes of love, domestic relationship, and the importance of women in mid-nineteenth century plantation culture appeal the novel to the women of the times,
Works Cited
Baym, Nina. Woman’s Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870. New York: Cornell UP, 1978.
Brown, Gillian. “Sentimental Possession.” Domestic Individualism: Imagining Self in Nineteenth-Century America. Berkeley: U of California P, 1990. 39-60.
Brown, Gillian. “Getting in the Kitchen with Dinah: Domestic Politics in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” American Quarterly 36 (Fall 1984): 503-523.
Davidson, Kathy N. “Preface: No more separate spheres!” American Literature 70 (September 1998): 443-454.
Eagleton, Mary. “Genre and Gender.” Modern Genre Theory. Ed. David Duff. London: Longman. 250-262.
Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY Harris. Teaching Unle Tom's Cabin: Women Characters and Readers.
Haug, Christine. Beyond Hearth and Home.
Henning, Martha L. Beyond Understanding: Appeals to the Imagination, Passions, and Will in Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Woman's Fiction. n.d.
Kaplan, E. Ann. "Motherhood and Representation ." (n.d.).
MacKethan, Lucinda H. "Domesticity in Dixie: The Plantation Novel and Uncle Tom’s Cabin."
McCandless, Brandi. Slavery's Destruction of Domestic Life.
Mueller, Hannah. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Breaking Down a Gendered Genre and a Genre of Gender. 25 03 2008. 22 02 2012
Shmoop.
Sower, Jessy. "The Changing Role of Women in America." (n.d.).
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. n.d.
Thesis Statements and Important Quotes from Uncle Tom's Cabin. 22 02 2012
Wearn, Mary McCartin. Negotiating Motherhood in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. New York: Jerome Nadelhaft, Routledge , 2008.
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