Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Balance between Racist Text and Anti-Racist Text
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is an anti-slavery narrative published in 1852, a time when slavery was practiced in the American society. Published as a series that would run in the anti-slavery newspaper called the National Era, it received more several approval and thus made it to run for ten months. Stowe’s book has received numerous criticism, both negative and positive about its position as either a racist or anti-racist text. However, the intention of this essay is to investigate elements that make it to be considered both a racist and anti-racist text.
These rhetorical stance and linguistic approach are of the view that Stowe uses expressions that …show more content…
Stowe employs common disrespectful words such as ‘negro,’ ‘nigger,’ and ‘negress' regularly in her text and this was largely acceptable during her era but in the modern day world, they are perceived to be disrespectful. Stowe tries to construct the white race as being superior both culturally and physically and while the black race is illustrated as a stereotypical others. This strategy of stereotyping is a process aimed at controlling one race into believing that they are inferior and that the colonizer possesses an in-born superiority. Therefore, by using such words like ‘negro,’ to describe black people, Stowe is not able to establish social equality for the two races. For example Stowe gives an account in chapter twenty-five that, "No; she can't bar me, ‘cause I'm a nigger!—she'd ‘s soon have a toad touch her! There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do nothin'! I don't care" (Stowe, …show more content…
For instance, at the onset off the text, an African-American slave called Aunt Chloe is made to fit perfectly with the portrayal of a satisfied and appropriately treated slave. "Her [Aunt Chloe] whole pump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment" (Stowe, 66). This representation creates a notion that black people are meant to serve the white race and at the same time obey and accept anything that is given to them. And this kind of depiction hinder Stowe’s primary insight that she tries to put forward. “There stood the two children, representatives of the two extremes of society. The fair, high-bred child, with her golden head, her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements; and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute neighbor. They stood the representatives of their races. The Saxon, bom of ages of cultivation, command, education, physical and moral eminence; the Afric, bom of ages of oppression, submission, ignorance, toil, and vice!” (Stowe 323). On the contrary, this kind of representation that Stowe uses is a strategy that is meant to raise awareness on the unfair, inhuman, and wrong treatment of the “other” race. The audience of the “narrative” are provoked to consider their practices since they are the perpetrators.
In conclusion, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was published
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is an anti-slavery narrative published in 1852, a time when slavery was practiced in the American society. Published as a series that would run in the anti-slavery newspaper called the National Era, it received more several approval and thus made it to run for ten months. Stowe’s book has received numerous criticism, both negative and positive about its position as either a racist or anti-racist text. However, the intention of this essay is to investigate elements that make it to be considered both a racist and anti-racist text.
These rhetorical stance and linguistic approach are of the view that Stowe uses expressions that …show more content…
Stowe employs common disrespectful words such as ‘negro,’ ‘nigger,’ and ‘negress' regularly in her text and this was largely acceptable during her era but in the modern day world, they are perceived to be disrespectful. Stowe tries to construct the white race as being superior both culturally and physically and while the black race is illustrated as a stereotypical others. This strategy of stereotyping is a process aimed at controlling one race into believing that they are inferior and that the colonizer possesses an in-born superiority. Therefore, by using such words like ‘negro,’ to describe black people, Stowe is not able to establish social equality for the two races. For example Stowe gives an account in chapter twenty-five that, "No; she can't bar me, ‘cause I'm a nigger!—she'd ‘s soon have a toad touch her! There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do nothin'! I don't care" (Stowe, …show more content…
For instance, at the onset off the text, an African-American slave called Aunt Chloe is made to fit perfectly with the portrayal of a satisfied and appropriately treated slave. "Her [Aunt Chloe] whole pump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment" (Stowe, 66). This representation creates a notion that black people are meant to serve the white race and at the same time obey and accept anything that is given to them. And this kind of depiction hinder Stowe’s primary insight that she tries to put forward. “There stood the two children, representatives of the two extremes of society. The fair, high-bred child, with her golden head, her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements; and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute neighbor. They stood the representatives of their races. The Saxon, bom of ages of cultivation, command, education, physical and moral eminence; the Afric, bom of ages of oppression, submission, ignorance, toil, and vice!” (Stowe 323). On the contrary, this kind of representation that Stowe uses is a strategy that is meant to raise awareness on the unfair, inhuman, and wrong treatment of the “other” race. The audience of the “narrative” are provoked to consider their practices since they are the perpetrators.
In conclusion, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was published