Reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it is difficult to mis-understand the central and direct theme of Stowe’s book: slavery is evil. Slavery is not only a curse to the unfortunate souls fettered to the system, but is a curse of all who come in contact with it and who do not make some effort to relieve the system’s misery. This is certainly true for the slaves themselves (George, Eliza, Harry, Tom, and Chloe), for the most vicious slaveholders (Haley, Loker, Marks, Marie, and Simone Legree), but is no less true for those who might be considered more humanitarian (Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, Augustine St. Claire, Miss Ophelia, and Senator Bird).
No one, of course, suffers on account of slavery’s malevolence more than little Eva, who is too pure to live in a world defiled by the South’s “peculiar institution.” It is perhaps unfortunate that a little white girl’s suffering is envisioned as greater than the millions who are actually “under the whip” but Stowe may have believed that in order to pull the emotional strings of Northern (and Southern) white women, Eva was a necessary character.
Stowe’s intention in this regard is easy to appreciate; however, we cannot overlook the themes which speak to other elements of the history of the era, such as, the power of religion, the force of emotion, the influence of women, the reality of black humanity, and the burgeoning sense of Northern complicity. In the end, however, it seems to me that in many ways, Stowe’s book, while not only exposing the evils of slavery (an institution that she had actually never seen first-hand), provides an excellent illustration of the power of the “Cult of Domesticity,” which permeated the lives of many women at the time. There are many examples of strong women in the novel; none directly seek to usurp male authority – but certainly recognize their ability to influence change. It was that power to change which may have provoked Abraham Lincoln’s apocryphal comment when they met at the White House in 1862: “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
Denis Brennan
