Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Satire

Uncle Tom’s Cabin stirred up enough controversy in the 1850s to set off a Civil War that had more casualties than all the other armed conflicts in which the US had been involved, combined, until World War II. Uncle Tom’s Cabin has also sparked scholarly debates as to whether the novel should be included in the “canon” of American literature or whether it should be condemned as a racist piece of propaganda whose time has past.

The Plot

Uncle Tom, the foreman of the Shelby plantation in Kentucky, is sold in the first chapter to a slave trader, Haley, by Mr. Shelby to settle debts he incurred as the result of bad investments. Uncle Tom takes leave of his wife, Aunt Chloe, the head cook of the plantation, and sets out with Haley who intends to sell Tom in the deep South. The deeper one goes into the South the worse off the slaves are purported to be treated. On the boat headed down river, Tom befriends a little girl named Eva. Tom rescues Eva when she falls into the water and her father, Augustine St. Clare buys Tom and takes him to New Orleans to serve as a coachman for his wife and playmate for little Eva. Accompanying St. Clare is his cousin, the self-righteous Miss Ophelia, a New Englander, coming to take over the household affairs from St. Clare’s hypochondriac wife, Marie. St. Clare also purchases, a few months later, a young slave girl named Topsy whom he gives to Miss Ophelia as a project to bring up as a Christian. While life with the St. Clare family isn’t physically taxing, a series of unfortunate events, which I will not reveal here, lands Tom in the hands of Simon Legree. Legree is a Yankee who tyrannizes his slaves with no mercy.

In the meantime, when Mr. Shelby sells Tom, he also sells the young child of a slave named Eliza who happens to be his wife’s lady’s maid. Eliza, who is three-quarters white, one-quarter black, is married to a slave from another plantation named George Harris who is half-black, half-white. George has decided to run away after his master set out to “break” him. He comes to tell Eliza good-bye and leaves. The same evening, Eliza overhears the Shelbys discussing the sale of Tom and learns that her little boy will be taken from her the next morning. She decides to run away with her child as well and begins a perilous journey to cross the Ohio River and escape the men hunting for her.

Characterization

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a minister’s daughter inflamed with abolitionist sentiments, and in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin to bring attention to the plight of slaves and the corruption of the institution of slavery. She researched her book through interviews with escaped slaves and others (see A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin for full documentation). Every character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin represents a stereotype from Uncle Tom to Miss Ophelia to Eliza’s little boy.

Uncle Tom: He is the quintessential “good Negro slave” who largely accepts his lot in life because of his Christian beliefs and will not hear one word said against Mr. Shelby for selling him, even though Shelby had promised Tom his freedom.

Aunt Chloe: Although a minor character, Aunt Chloe represents the fat, good-natured mammy type. Both she, Tom and Topsy speak in a heavy dialect unlike the more refined speech of the slaves of mixed blood.

Topsy: Topsy, an abused child, represents the archetype “heathenish” slave; she’s wild and uncontrollable, fibs, steals, and yet can entertain like the minstrel-show character upon which Stowe based this character.

George, Eliza and Harry Harris: Since these characters are of mixed blood, they are described as more beautiful than pure black slaves, and certainly portrayed as more articulate and intelligent. However, Harry is also depicted like “Jim Crow,” doing the antics of a minstrel show character, similar to Topsy, and scrambling on the floor for raisins and nuts like an organ grinder’s monkey.

Little Eva: She’s the beautiful, angelic child who has more effect on Topsy through unconditional love than Miss Ophelia’s discipline. Eva represents the way “Christian” love should be practiced toward all people.

Miss Ophelia: Miss Ophelia believes it’s her Christian duty to convert Topsy and teach her to act respectably. She proselytizes the abominableness of slavery yet Miss Ophelia shrinks from even touching a black person. Interestingly enough, Stowe based this character on herself.

St. Clare: He is my favorite character, one of the most complex in the book. St. Clare, the epitome of Southern gentility, knows exactly how horrible slavery is, yet he does nothing to end it, having in the course of his life become too jaded and inured to the system to attempt to change it. He does not discipline his slaves because he cannot stand the cruelty of it.

Marie St. Clare: Marie is the typical refined Southern belle who believes the world revolves around her and her suffering. She barely gets out of bed, but keeps the household hopping with her unceasing demands and remonstrances about her “frail” constitution.

Simon Legree: Legree is the evil villain who works his slaves nearly non-stop and merely replaces one with another when they can no longer keep up with the frenetic pace and the malnutrition. He uses women for his own pleasure (which they tolerate as a means of staying out of the fields) and has corrupted two slaves into being as tyrannical and sadistic as he is.

Elements of Style

Stowe used the then-popular style of a sentimental novel. The prose is not as concise or as flowing as it could be. Stowe employed, at times, rather obvious rhetorical strategies to appeal to the reader’s emotions rather than to her reason, although I find St. Clare’s speeches particularly incriminating of slavery as an institution and ideas of “natural” white supremacy. In spite of its weaknesses, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a tour de force of satire. This book held up a mirror to white 19th century society, North and South, and showed them a true image of themselves. In this novel, Stowe manipulates stereotypes to expose them for what they truly are, and she did it exceedingly well.

Overall

While I do recommend this book for children as well as adults, parents should discuss this novel with their children who might not understand the concepts of satire and archetypes or the non-politically correct terminology used in the book. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a classic example of satire, and maybe it’s such a target for criticism 150 years after its publication because American society (white, black, Asian, etc.) continues to stereotype people based on race or other characteristics. I believe that Uncle Tom’s Cabin remains a politically germane book, and will continue to do so, as long as we continue to have or allow others to have disposable people.