Jane Tompkins’ essay, Sentimental Power, offers the reader a brash, analytical perspective of the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Tomkins details her thoughts on why Uncle Tom’s Cabin had little impact on feminism, has an unwarranted claim as a sentimentalist classic, and why it is an unrealistic depiction of death relying too heavily on religion. This essay with offer a counter argument to these three topics.
On page two of her essay, Tomkins states that, “Unwittingly or not, so the story goes, they [the female writers] were apologists for an oppressive social order”. It can be argued that Tomkins is offering this critical analysis from a modern perspective without taking into consideration the silent power behind Stowe’s female characters and how it was presented in an effective way to appeal to a broad audience when the book was published. If all male readers of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were met with strong-willed, obviously powerful female characters, it could possibly have been considered to be too unrealistic for many men to relate to, and subsequently alienate a part of her audience.
When looking at the emotional …show more content…
She states, “Little Eva 's death, so the argument goes, like every other sentimental tale, is awash with emotion but does nothing to remedy the evils it deplores. Essentially, it leaves the slave system and the other characters unchanged”. According to this quote, it appears that Tomkins expected deaths like Eva’s to have a sudden, profound impact on the entire course of the novel. In reality, the religious aspect should be analyzed, but there should also be a focus on the emotional devastation that Tom felt through his loss of Eva. The reader is provided with an example of a deep connection between two races, and Tom is left powerless after Eva’s death, just as he was before. Because he is a slave, he is incapable of remedying deplorable
On page two of her essay, Tomkins states that, “Unwittingly or not, so the story goes, they [the female writers] were apologists for an oppressive social order”. It can be argued that Tomkins is offering this critical analysis from a modern perspective without taking into consideration the silent power behind Stowe’s female characters and how it was presented in an effective way to appeal to a broad audience when the book was published. If all male readers of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were met with strong-willed, obviously powerful female characters, it could possibly have been considered to be too unrealistic for many men to relate to, and subsequently alienate a part of her audience.
When looking at the emotional …show more content…
She states, “Little Eva 's death, so the argument goes, like every other sentimental tale, is awash with emotion but does nothing to remedy the evils it deplores. Essentially, it leaves the slave system and the other characters unchanged”. According to this quote, it appears that Tomkins expected deaths like Eva’s to have a sudden, profound impact on the entire course of the novel. In reality, the religious aspect should be analyzed, but there should also be a focus on the emotional devastation that Tom felt through his loss of Eva. The reader is provided with an example of a deep connection between two races, and Tom is left powerless after Eva’s death, just as he was before. Because he is a slave, he is incapable of remedying deplorable