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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Critiquing the Critics

So, for a class project I got the opportunity to do some additional research on Uncle Tom’s Cabin—mostly critiques. Let me tell you, the critics from 1850 (all male) were brutal!
I read five criticisms included in Norton’s Anthology of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 2nd Edition, edited by Elizabeth Ammons. If you have read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and have access to the Norton Critical Edition, I would encourage you to look through the criticisms by George Sand, William Allen, George Holmes, “anonymous” (London’s The Times), Charles Dudley Warner, and Jane P. Tompkins. Their critiques give a balanced view of Stowe’s work “then and now.”
Ironically (but not at all surprising), the early critics’ greatest argument against Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the gender of the author. All admitted, though somewhat grudgingly, that Stowe’s story was compelling and emotional, but argued that she had stepped outside her bounds by writing on such a political topic. Tompkins, whose criticism was released after the feminist movement of the 1960s, was the only critic to give Stowe any credence as an author. And rightly so. When you consider the mentality of the world in 1850 (a male-dominated society), it is understandable that the men wished Stowe would have stayed at home. But she told the story the world needed to hear.
I must, however, laugh at the obstinate, bigoted criticism of George Holmes. Holmes published his critique in The Southern Literary Messenger  in October of 1852, shortly after Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published. Holmes is probably the most belligerent of the critics concerning Stowe’s gender. In relation to talent as a writer, Holmes says, “Possessed of a happy faculty of description, asn easy and natural style, and uncommon command of pathos and considerable dramatic skill, she might, in the legitimate exercise of such talents, have done much to enrich the literature of America, and to gladden and elevate her fellow beings” (505). Sound nice, right? A polite compliment of a Southern gentleman . . . but wait, there’s more. “But she has chosen to employ her pen for purposes of a less worthy nature. . . . to sow, in this blooming garden of freedom, the seeds of strife and violence and all direful contentions.” Now, I could be wrong, but I don’t think the Civil War is the fault of Harriet Beecher Stowe—even if President Lincoln did say, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.” Again, at this point Holmes probably hasn’t gone any further than other contemporary critics. Even when he remarks that Stowe (and other women of New England) should not be treated equally and should, as a female, keep her mouth shut concerning politics. He even has the audacity to quote I Timothy 2 (“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”), which I’m quite sure he has taken out of context.
Holmes has other criticisms concerning Uncle Tom’s Cabin—the seeming disunity of the two stories, the fact that slaves are viewed as good and slave owners as evil, the unrealistic piety of Uncle Tom, and Stowe’s supposed misrepresentation of Southern slave laws, just to name a few. But the kicker, the remark that sent me reeling in a mix of laugher and scorn was his closing sentence: a single suggestion that the author open her Bible to Exodus 20 and take to hear the words, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Really sir? You have the audacity to misquote Scripture, not just once, but twice and defend a practice so inhumane . . . well, at least we know how that turned out. It appears, sir, that Mrs. Stowe was right after all—American society—specifically the cruelty of slavery—had to change. And it did.
(646)

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