Uncle Tom’s
Cabin always stands out as one of notable landmarks in the progress of freeing
the slavery, which lays the foundation for the Civil War. However, obviously, Baldwin may won’t buy this. In his opinion, ‘self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality’ shown
in the novel is nothing but ‘the mark of dishonest’, ‘the inability to feel’, ‘the
signal of secret and violence inhumanity’ and ‘the mask of cruelty’ (533).
Baldwin claims
that many black characters in Mrs. Stowe’s book are too ‘white’ and not typical
black people. As the most important figure, Uncle Tom is described as a man who
is ‘phenomenally forbearing’ due to his sin of being black. Indeed, from
reading the Bible at the very beginning of the book, to being viciously beaten
by Legree at last, Tom always acted like a pastor with mercy and compassion,
instead of an unfree slave who was treated extremely unfair and suffering huge
pain. This setting is too white, ideal and Christian. Many portrayal about Tom,
including his feeling and thoughts inside, his choices in suffering and especially
his death at the end, makes Tom’s life more or less like a kind of sublimation in
the way as the crucifixion of Jesus.
Moreover, in
Chapter XLIV, when George Shelby went back home after Uncle Tom’s death, he announced
to all his servant that he would set them free. Surprisingly, all his servants earnestly
begged him not to send them away and said that they didn’t want to be freer
than what they were. Different from the great joy and excitement as
I expect, numbness and submissiveness shown in their reaction depicted by Stowe, can indicates her potential racism to some extent. Faced
with miserable fate as victims of oppression and enslavement, African race shouldn’t
just accept everything naturally. It’s so tragic if a slave thinks freedom is
useless and prefer to serve a gentle master. Freedom is not a right unnecessary
to live with. It must means something to any race and any person. Stowe in her
book somehow weakens and even embellishes the evilness of slavery system in the
history, but be more focused on the power of belief and religion.
But as a white
person, it might be hard for Stowe to fully understand the real thoughts of
black people at that time. She can only finish this fiction by observation and
imagination. Anyway, we have to admit the significant importance and success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the history of
American literature.
Hi Yucheng,
ReplyDeleteYou gave out quite an excellent example in Para. 3. That chapter reflected the racism of Stowe obviously. Here, I’d like to communicate with you about my opinion on the setting of Uncle Tom.
You think the reason why Uncle Tom is so perfect, “too white” and “always acted like a pastor” is related to the limitation of the writer’s understanding of the black people’s thoughts. To some extent, I agree with your idea because this is one possible objective reason. However, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not a political document but a novel. For me, novel is one form of art work. Why we need art? I think art demonstrates us something abstracted and ideal. Just like watching a movie, we enjoyed the movie and might be inspired, but we would not always blame the perfect performance of the leading role. Hence, I think the fact that Uncle Tom is kind of perfect should be accepted as this is a novel but not a real story.
Yucheng,
ReplyDeleteI am unclear on what you meant in the second paragraph when you said "This setting is too white, ideal, and Christian." Are you saying Baldwin would attribute Tom's passiveness and compassion to being characteristics of a white person?