The feminine mechanics of political intervention in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Tom Tigone

Women, Men, and Intimacy in and Around Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin is quite consciously and unmistakably a book about slavery -- the ownership of one human being by another is central to the plot of the story, and even to many of the themes in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel that do not relate directly to slavery as practiced in the southern United States through the first six decades of the nineteenth century. The intent of the author was, at least in part, unquestionably to garner sympathy for the abolitionist cause she supported, and that the emergence and popularity of the novel helped to foment precisely such fervor amongst the citizenry is a testament to the book's prowess in this regard. The book does not condemn slavery as harshly as many might expect, and in fact certain slave-owners are presented in what would have been seen at the time as a highly positive light, with many idealized slave-master relationships, but the turns of the plot and the eventual outcome are all explicit indicators of the moral position of the text.

Yet to read this novel only as a tale about slavery is to miss much of the nuance of the text and the talent of the author. Slavery is an important issue in and of itself -- the primary issue of the novel and the era n which it was written, to be sure -- but it is not all that the novel deals with. Rather, the issue of nineteenth century slavery in the United States is used to more deeply explore the human condition, both as it exists internally and as it is externally manifested and manipulated in the relationships of contemporary civilization. It is the depth and intimacy of this exploration that gives the book's more explicit message its power; the depiction and experience of humanity that is presented in the book is recognizable to all, and the impact of slavery on slaves, owners, and even the "uninvolved" upon this depicted human condition is central top the political content of the novel. As such, the themes of the novel are truly as varied s the themes of human life, dealing with issues as seemingly un-intimate as commerce and as clearly intimate as the relationship between a wife and her husband. Displays and influences of moral authority and moral positioning are established through these more intimate relationships especially, and the book approaches the reader in much the same way as wife might seduce husband from a position of greater sanctity and righteousness than he himself has achieved. The following pages examine the "Antigones" of Uncle Tom's Cabin, namely the righteous women that serve as moral guides to the characters of their husband and to the reader, as well as other aspects of the novel that lead to the creation of an intimate and morally instructive relationship with the reader.

Tom's 'Tigones

Several strong female characters populate Stowe's text, making the case for humanity and against slavery with an eloquence and a fortitude that leads to the admiration and eased administration of their husbands, and that also serves to inspire the reader via an intimate and human example of unwavering morality (Ammons). Mrs. Shelby, wife to Tom's original (at least, when the novel opens) master, is the first and perhaps clearest example of this. Her relationship with her husband and her moral position are both made explicitly clear: "Her husband, who made no great professions to any particular religious character, nevertheless reverenced and respected the consistency of hers […] He really seemed somehow or other to fancy that his wife had piety and benevolence enough for two" (814). Mrs. Shelby is a strong moral force, while her husband's own moral position is more than a little dubious and explicitly dependent upon her own unwavering rectitude. She opposes the sale of Tom and others by her husband to a slave trader, and though she is legally unable to stop this sale her moral outrage and the semi-cowing of her husband speak volumes. This interaction and the division between husband and wife it creates makes the moral sentiment of the scene all the more powerful, providing the reader entrance into the emotive as well as the ethical aspects of the exchange. The reader, able to appreciate Mr. Shelby's financial difficulties and his reasoning for selling his human property, is made to experience some of the guilt Mr. Shelby experiences as well as the moral outrage expressed by Mrs. Shelby, and like the former hopes they can be spared retribution for their baser concerns and desires out of the moral power and sanctity of the latter. Involvement in the complexities of this moral and social relationship creates an intimate incorporation of the reader into the novel.

Eliza Harris, who flees the Shelbys with her son when she learns he is to be sold, provides similar moral support and guidance -- as well as opposition -- to her own husband George, and again in a manner that intimately approaches and instructs the reader. Of the pair, it is Eliza who make decisions based on moral sensibility rather than personal benefit, fleeing towards her own liberation only in an effort to save her child from an uncertain but likely terrible fate and insisting that they risk a return to slavery by saving the life of a man working to capture them. That Eliza possesses greater moral strength than George is quite clear, and is known by both characters and by the reader. "Pray for me, Eliza," George pleads to his wife during one point in the narrative, "perhaps the good Lord will hear you" (818). Again, the reader is given entrance into the novel, into the characters' lives, and into the moral position and perspective of the novel through the intimate depiction of a husband in despair and reaching out for the support of his stronger and more morally-backboned wife. Culpability, dependence, and even love are felt by the reader in this scene, and the intimacy gained is central to the strength of the story and its import. Similar pleas or exhortations are made from the text to the reader on an even more explicit basis, such as the repeated apostrophes to mothers made in relation to Eliza and in other scenes. "Oh mother who reads this" is a call to enter the intimate and emotive world of the novel that cannot be resisted by any reader that has children or has a mother, and again both makes the reader culpable while at the same time empowers them with moral vigor and emotive capacity (Brown).

Less central to the story but just as strongly indicative of the intimate nature of morality and relationships in this book are Senator Bird, a rather weak-spined politician, and his wife Mrs. Bird, who just as resolutely exemplifies the call to morality out of a sheer sense of human goodness as do the other women discussed above. "Now, John," Mrs. Bird explains somewhat impatiently to her excuse-making husband, "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" (829). The exchange between Senator and wife brings the intimate into the express realm of the political, with moral action argued as a necessity in the political world regardless of other competing political constraints, and Mrs. Bird's clarity and pithiness are stirring to the reader even more so than they appear to be to her husband. By creating this division of moral position and of power, with the political power entirely on the side of the husband and the real moral authority and clarity of vision and purpose on the side of the wife, Stowe forces the reader into an examination of the dynamics of their own relationships, their own gender roles and identities to a degree, and their own moral position, and strengthens the art and the actionability of her story in so doing (Noble). All of these morally-empowered women, though often ineffectual in terms of directing physical change, are nonetheless instrumental in impacting their world and in making the reader responsible for their own world.

Reasoning from Feelings

The ongoing justification for slavery itself and for many of the individual behaviors that go into the depiction of slavery presented in Uncle Tom's Cabin, used almost exclusively if not entirely exclusively by male characters, is that logical dealings with physical and financial realities cannot admit the sympathies and compassions that are seen as guiding the feminine moral compass. "We can't reason from our feelings," as it is explicitly stated at one point (844). Yet it is precisely from an intimate and emotive perspective that the novel makes its central points, with constant and explicit tugs at the reader's heartstrings meant to demonstrate the lack of any sort of rectitude in the contemporary status quo. Though the novel never directly refutes the notion that reason and feelings are two mutually exclusive modes of human experience and expression, it also works to make the importance of feelings and their rectitude as a foundation for decision-making explicitly clear (Camfield). It is entirely through such efforts that the larger impact of the novel is made.

One scene in particular is meant as an especially compelling emotional allegory, and is very effective at making the undeniable and intimate nature of human feelings as a basis for moral decisions-making abundantly clear. When Mrs. Bird catches her two sons tormenting defenseless kittens, she berates them and ultimately succumbs to tears at the plight and pain of the cats and, perhaps even more so, at the cruelty of her own children. It seems to be in man's nature -- and specifically in man's nature as opposed to woman's -- to practice cruelty, yet even the practitioners can usually be made to recognize that their cruelty is wrong simply by dint of being cruel, and for no other logical or deduced reason. Their mother's tears more than her stern admonitions cause the boys to understand the error of their ways, to repent and to vow to refrain from such cruelty in the future; it is being confronted with the sheer horror of their actions -- the intimate, feeling, and most quintessentially human effects of the decisions made -- that causes understanding and change more than the angry yet reasoned explanation of why what they were doing was so wrong.