I chose to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin because Kristian and I visited the house that it was partially modeled on when we were in town for Jen(nie)’s wedding a couple of weeks ago. The property was recently bought by the county and is waiting to become a visitor’s center of some sort. There may or may not have been some trespassing involved.
The friend that we visited the site with explained that there was a slave that lived on the property and who had a cabin (long since torn down). He and his humble abode were used as models for both the character of Tom and for the farm that Tom lives on at the beginning of the book by Harriet Beecher Stowe when she wrote her story. The house is still there and the kitchen is still in its original condition.
All of this went a bit over my head, howerver, because I had never actually read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I know that a lot of people talk about the book and it has even spawned its own insult (“Uncle Tom”), but how many people have actually read it? Who knows, perhaps I am the only person in the history of the American school system to somehow make it through 18 years of formal schooling without ever reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This is very possible. Please feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments section. However, it seems to me that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a book that is talked about quite frequently and actually read much less frequently.
I apologize if all of you have read the book and think that this post is unnecessary. But, hey, if you have read the book, we can have a dialogue about it in the comments. So, it’s a win-win situation.
I saw Uncle Tom’s Cabin as being a product very much of its time. While the book was radical in showing the plight of slaves under the brutal system of slavery, it’s not exactly enlightened by our modern standards. While Harriet Beecher Stows sought (and succeeded) to show how slaves were humans who were brutally opressed and who had thoughts and hopes and dreams just like their white masters, the book does resort to several stereotypes. The words “as is typical of their race” are used fairly frequently.
The book does end with a chapter that expounds on the virtues of several slaves who escaped from their bondage and who made something wonderful of themselves. So, I am by no means suggesting that Harriet Beecher Stowe was some sort of racist. She was far from it. But, she takes a very different attitude towards black people than she probably would have if she had lived in 2008 and not in the 1800’s. In her day, the word mulatto didn’t have nearly the same meaning as it does today. Nevertheless, my white guilt kicked in and it made me a tad bit uncomfortable.
The biggest thing that I took away from this book is what a bad rap poor old Uncle Tom has gotten. Yes, it’s true that he willingly allowed himself to be sold away from his family when he could easily have run away. And, yes, he worked closely with his various masters and showed concern for both their comfort and their religion. But, he’s not the collaborator that most people seem to see him as. Who knows, perhaps this is unenlightened of me, but I saw him as very sympathetic. (Spoiler alert!) Who can argue with a man who basically allows himself to be killed to protect two vulnerable slaves who he helped run away?
Harriet Beecher Stowe certainly never thought of Tom as a villain or a stooge. She describes him in loving language and the book is full of characters who praise Tom and who pay him homage. In many ways, he is a Christ-like character, who suffers and dies for the sins of others. What many people see as Tom’s weaknesses, I saw as his compassion. While it is easy to hate people who do bad things, I do think that there is a time and a place for forgiveness and understanding. Tom, a deeply religious man, believes that the people who treat him brutally will spend an eternity in Hell for their sins. Rather than rejoicing at this, he feels sorry for them. Perhaps this makes him a stooge, but I think that it makes him strong. At the end of the book, the son of Tom’s first master watches Tom die, the result of a brutal beating. Tom’s death touches him profoundly and makes him see just how horrible slavery is. He returns to his home in Kentucky and frees all of his slaves. He vows to spend the rest of his life working to fight slavery in all of its many forms.
Tom never says that he would like to continue on as a slave. In fact, he says several times in the book that he would rather be destitute and free than to be well cared for and a slave. He does agree to be sold down South, but he makes the sacrifice for his family, who he believes will all be sold at auction if he can’t be sold to pay his master’s debts. I don’t see this as self-sacrifice for the sake of his master. I see this as self-sacrifice for the good of his family.
The other thing that surprised me about this book was just how religious it was. I had always thought of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as being an anti-slavery treatise, but it’s really a Christian novel. At points the religious imagery gets to be almost overwhelming. I fully admit to skimming a few pages when Stowe went on and on for paragraphs about Jesus. Who knows, maybe those were the pages where I would have realized what an Uncle Tom poor old Uncle Tom really was!
The power in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not just that it exposes the brutality and horror of slavery. That part is powerful, yes, but even more powerful is how she masterfully shows the culpability of every American who didn’t actively fight against it. She can be a bit ham-fisted about her approach, but the message is clear. Northern bankers who arrange for estates (including the many people who go along with those estates) to be sold at auction are just as culpable as the brutal masters who buy slaves and mistreat them. In fact, Stowe argues that these Northern financiers are even more culpable, as they should know better, having grown up in free states where slavery wasn’t an acceptable way of life.
The book makes it very clear that slavery, even with a kind master who cares for his slaves and provides for their comfort, is still brutalizing and horrible. No man (or woman) who is owned by someone else can be truly happy or at peace.
Slaves in Uncle Tom’s Cabin are whipped, flogged and branded. They are stolen from their families, forced to take new spouses and denied the chance to raise their own children. Stowe later published another book explaining further that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not exxagerated or made up. Many Americans just couldn’t believe that slaves were treated so horrifically. The book is a chilling reminder of the injustices that were perpetrated by ordinary Americans not that long ago. It seems fitting to read a book like this just a little over a week after America elected its first black president. It’s a reminder of how far we have come and how far we need to go.
What say you, readers? Am I an idiot for feeling for Uncle Tom’s plight? Should I have read more of the Jesus stuff? Are my conclusions about the book similar to yours?
I’ve never read it either. Probably considered too controversial, especially if it’s a little…’old-fashioned’ in its language. Sounds interesting though.
My husband somehow managed to get through the American school system having never read Where the Red Fern Grows, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Beowulf. wth???