Unintentional but Present Nonetheless: Racism in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Jane Tompkins' assessment of Uncle Tom's Cabin and its critics is perfectly valid. I agree that a sentimental, melodramatic style of writing can be effective and that historical context must be considered when analyzing such works-- especially one as significant as Uncle Tom's Cabin. Maybe critics like James Baldwin miss the point by rejecting the style, and there's no doubt that they marginalize feminist authorship by doing so. However-- his shortcomings aside-- I do think that Baldwin was right in questioning Stowe's authority on the subject of her novel and accusing her of perpetuating the constructs she intended to upend.

I don't agree with everything Baldwin said; for example, I certainly disagree the way he puts little value in a sentimental author's intent. I don't think Uncle Tom's Cabin was written with any malice or greed and I don't think Stowe should be lambasted for it quite like she is. But there's a definite racism brought to life by Stowe and the way she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin that can be found in this passage:

"Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, learning everything that was taught her with surprising quickness. With a few lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties of Miss Ophelia's chamber in a way with which even that particular lady could find no fault. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when she chose,-- but she didn't very often choose. If Miss Ophelia, after three or four days of careful and patient supervision, was so sanguine as to suppose that Topsy had at last fallen into her way, could do without over-looking, and so go off and busy herself about something else, Topsy would hold a perfect carnival of confusion, for some one or two hours. Instead of making the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling off the pillow-cases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it would sometimes be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking out in various directions; she would climb the posts, and hang head downward from the tops' flourish the sheets and spreads all over the apartment; dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia's night-clothes, and enact various scenic performances with that,-- singing and whistling, and making grimaces at herself in the looking-glass; in short, as Miss Ophelia phrased it, "raising Cain" generally" (227-228).

Racism is an intangible concept that can come to exist through language. By trying to confront racism, Stowe allows it to live, and in this passage actually furthers racist ideals. The obvious example is the identification of a "right" way of doing things. According to Miss Ophelia and Stowe, one way of making the bed or sweeping or behaving is correct, and anything else constitutes "raising Cain." This creates a superior class and an inferior one, a good and an evil. Another example of racism hidden here is the assumption that Topsy needs the teaching of white people to right her wrongs. It's the white man's burden to carefully, patiently supervise her and teach her what's right, and her intelligence is measured by how well she can pick it up. Again, this rhetoric identifies a right and a wrong, and the separation of the two groups is what makes racism possible.

Baldwin would likely read this passage very similarly. In his essay, he criticized Stowe for trying to whitewash her characters into acceptance, and this passage is a fictional example of that process. Beneath Stowe's sentimentalism, here, is an example of exactly what Baldwin meant when he said that the oppressed don't exist without the oppressing and preached the pitfalls of categorization. The protest novel is an altogether respectable idea and Uncle Tom's Cabin is admirable, but Stowe failed to consider the beliefs she was communicating, and undermined her own protest efforts in doing so.