hoowards 2008-5-6 07:50
Major Characters in Uncle Toms Cabin
Abstract: Uncle Tom's Cabin is both a good read and an important document of history. Having touched the very root of a sore point, the book not only shook America but the whole world as well. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the first novel to explore the cruelties of slavery in America, and helped to spark public opposition to slavery in the years prior to the Civil War. At the meanwhile, you would not fail to remember the major characters Uncle Tom and St. Clare after reading this novel. Within the world of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom is presented as more than a black hero—he is presented as a hero-transcending race. And St. Clare, probably the most complex female character in the novel, she deserves special attention from the reader
Keywords: characters, Uncle Tom, St. Clare
1 Introduction
You would not fail to feel the impact Uncle Tom's Cabin made upon America before and during the Civil War years if you heard President Lincoln referring to it as "the book that made this Great War". Having touched the very root of a sore point, the book not only shook America but the whole world as well. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the first novel to explore the cruelties of slavery in America, and helped to spark public opposition to slavery in the years prior to the Civil War. It is the milestone in American abolitionist literature and the great book that changed America. Its popularity is shown in the fact that 300,000 copies were sold within the first year of its publication in American and the total number scaled over two million and a half in the first year through all over the world. Now as a classic, Uncle Tom's Cabin appears in more than sixty languages.
Mrs. Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin soon after passage of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which granted Southerners the right to pursue fugitive slaves into free states. This law aroused many abolitionists to action - and writing. She created memorable characters that portrayed the inhumanity of slavery and the insidious, corrupting influence this "peculiar institution" had upon the whole nation. Uncle Tom, Little Eva, George Shelby, Cassy, Chole, Topsy and Simon Legree galvanized anti slavery sentiment.
2 Analysis of Major Characters
2.1 Uncle Tom
History has not been kind to Uncle Tom, the hero of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and one of the most popular figures of nineteenth-century American fiction. After its initial burst of sensational popularity and influence, Uncle Tom’s Cabin fell into neglect. Its circulation declined following the end of the Civil War and Stowe’s death, and by the mid-1900s, the book was virtually out of print. Not until the early 1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement reawakened an interest in anti-slavery fiction, did the novel again become widely read. The values and attributes that seemed admirable in its characters in 1852 frequently appeared incomprehensible and even contemptible to twentieth-century readers. In particular, the passive acceptance of slavery practiced by the novel’s title character seemed horrendously out of line with the resolve and strength of modern black Civil Rights crusaders. The term “Uncle Tom” became an insult, conjuring an image of an old black man eager to please his white masters and happy to accept his own
Although modern readers’ criticisms hold some validity, the notion of an “Uncle Tom” contains generalizations not found within the actual character in the novel. First, Tom is not an old man. The novel states that he is eight years older than Shelby, which probably places him in his late forties at the start of the novel. Moreover, Tom does not accept his position of inferiority with happiness. Tom’s passivity owes not to stupidity or to contentment with his position, but to his deep religious values, which impel him to love everyone and selflessly endure his trials. Indeed, Tom’s central characteristic in the novel is this religiosity, his strength of faith. Everywhere Tom goes in the novel, he manages to spread some of the love and goodwill of his religious beliefs, helping to alleviate the pain of slavery and enhance the hope of salvation. And while this religiosity translates into a selfless passivity on Tom’s part, it also translates into a policy of warm encouragement of others’ attempts at freedom. Thus, he supports Eliza’s escape, as well as that of Cassy and Emmeline from the Legree plantation. Moreover, while Tom may not actively seek his own freedom, he practices a kind of resistance in his passivity. When Legree orders him to beat the slave girl in Chapter XXXIII, he refuses, standing firm in his values. He will submit to being beaten for his beliefs, but he will not capitulate or run away.
Moreover, even in recognizing Tom’s passivity in the novel, and Stowe’s approving treatment of it, one should note that Stowe makes it very clear that if the Stowe does not present this behavior as a model of black behavior, but as a heroic model of behavior that should be practiced by everyone, black and white. Villainous white slaveholders of the novel were to achieve Tom’s selfless Christian love for others, slavery would be impossible, and Tom’s death never would have happened. Because Stowe believes that a transformation through Christian love must occur before slavery can be abolished successfully, she holds up Tom’s death as nobler than any escape, in that it provides an example for others and offers the hope of a more generalized salvation. Through this death, moreover, Tom becomes a Christ figure, a radical role for a black character to play in American fiction in 1852. Tom’s death proves Legree’s fundamental moral and personal inferiority, and provides the motivating force behind George Shelby’s decision to free all the slaves. By practicing selflessness and loving his enemy, Tom becomes a martyr and affects social change. Although contemporary society finds its heroes in active agents of social change and tends to discourage submissiveness, Stowe meant for Tom to embody noble heroic tendencies of his own. She portrayed his passivity as a virtue unconnected to his minority status. Within the world of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom is presented as more than a black hero—he is presented as a hero-transcending race.
2.2 Ophelia St. Clare
Another image, radiating with spiritual luster, is Evangeline St. Clare, probably the most complex female character in the novel, she deserves special attention from the reader because she is treated as a surrogate for Stowe’s intended audience. It is as if Stowe conceived an imaginary picture of her intended reader, then brought that reader into the book as a character. Ophelia embodies what Stowe considered a widespread Northern problem: the white person who opposes slavery on a theoretical level but feels racial prejudice and hatred in the presence of an actual black slave. Ophelia detests slavery, but she considers it almost necessary for blacks, against whom she harbors a deep-seated prejudice—she does not want them to touch her. Stowe emphasizes that much of Ophelia’s racial prejudice stems from unfamiliarity and ignorance rather than from actual experience-based hatred. Because Ophelia has seldom spent time in the presence of slaves, she finds them uncomfortably alien.
However, Ophelia is one of the only characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin who develops as the story progresses. Once St. Clare puts Topsy in her care, Ophelia begins to have increased contact with a slave. At first she tries to teach Topsy out of a sense of mere duty. But Stowe suggests that duty alone will not eradicate slavery—abolitionists must act out of love. Eva’s death proves the crucial catalyst in Ophelia’s transformation, and she comes to love Topsy as a human being, overcoming her racial prejudice and offering a model to Stowe’s Northern readers.
3 The value of this novel
Today, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is valued because it raises still pertinent issues of racism in the United States, as well as inspiriting feminist thought on the role of women and the conjunction of race and sex. Some criticize the novel, however, for being racist because of its sentimental and stereotypical characterizations of slaves. The triumph of the novel is not that it shows the widespread experience of slavery in the South, but rather that it portrays the personal tragedies the system caused. So too, Uncle Tom's Cabin challenged Northerners to end their hypocrisy and recognize their participation in the propagation of slavery. Moreover, it argued that slaves were not property, but human beings with emotions like those of the readers. For this reason, Stowe chose to portray intimate stories to show the harm being done to individual humans. To the modern reader, Uncle Tom's Cabin may appear over-sentimental and preachy, but Stowe wanted to inspire a strong emotional reaction of indignation in her readers.
4 Conclusions
To sum up, Uncle Tom and Ophelia St. Clare are two major characters that give us strong impact in this novel. We can’t forget Tom who is full of love for his neighbors, blacks and whites and faithful to God and man. And Ophelia St. Clare, who is full of love, likes a good guardian angel in spirit. Uncle Tom's Cabin is both a good read and an important document of history -- an illuminating companion to any study of the Civil War. It is one of the most influential books written, and is a useful guide to understanding how the exploitation of one generation continues to afflict us today. If you consider reading this novel aloud around the dining room table, be mindful of the gravity of the novel's theme.