LITR 4232: American Renaissance
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002
Index to Student Research Projects

Leigh Ann Moore
LITR 4232
Dr. White
Due April 18, 2002

St. Clare in Uncle Tom’s Cabin

               Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a study in the abominations of slavery, the collaboration of the North in promoting slavery in the South, and an intense character study that insists the reader acknowledge the dangers of slaves’ lives and souls and those of their owners.  Stowe presents a variety of characters representing the attitudes of prejudice and complacency alongside those of Christian giving and compassion.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was part of the chain reaction, drawing people’s attention to slavery, helping to start the Civil War.  Stowe’s characters show the dynamic construct of opposing sentiments that made up the country during the complicated years of slavery.   The St. Clare family dynamic addresses many aspects of the question of slavery; the family can be seen to represent the North and South during that period, the stratification of family members show the attitudes about the treatment of slaves, Ms. Ophelia conquers her racism, and Evangeline answers the Christian questions raised by this issue.  By using these representations in characters such as the St. Clare family, Stowe brings the indifferent bystander into action for the abolition of slavery.

               The St. Clare family is made up of a variety of unique characters.  The husband and father is Augustine St. Clare, a very relaxed man with lax standards for his home, his slaves, and his family.  Although Augustine comes from a slave owning family and his brother is a harsher master, Augustine never buys into the slavery rhetoric.  Augustine never agrees with the justifications made by the South, the Southern people, and the churches of the South for allowing slavery; “If I was to say anything on this slavery matter, I would say out, fair and square, ‘We’re in for it; we’ve got ‘em, and mean to keep ‘em, --it’s for our convenience and our interest;’ for that’s the long and short of it” (Stowe, 181).  Although Augustine makes no apologies for slavery, he does realize the injustice of it; he comments that “it comes from the devil, that’s the short of it;--and, to my mind, it’s a pretty respectable specimen of what he can do in his own line” (Stowe, 221).  Augustine is not a mean master but he has no order to his home and allows his servants to steal from him and lie to him, excusing it as a consequence of subjecting an entire race of people to servitude. 

               Marie St. Clare, Augustine’s wife and Eva’s mother, is quite the opposite of her husband.  Marie believes in the Biblical justification for slavery and buys into the idea that although the slaves have immortal souls, they are somehow inferior and do not deserve the same treatment as whites.  Stowe uses many of the women in Uncle Tom’s Cabin to portray a heightened sense of morality; women are shown to be more nurturing and see the injustice in slavery.  Marie St. Clare is a departure from this portrayal; Marie “is abominable because she will not think and feel like a mother.  She behaves instead, in the terms of this novel, like a man: ruthless, greedy, self-centered, cruel.  And she is a monster” (Ammons, 165).   Marie is selfish even in terms of motherhood; when Eva is found to be sick and the doctor is called, Marie immediately has a sick headache and wants a specialist to be called because she “would not trust him [Eva’s doctor] in a critical case” (Stowe, 277), inferring that he is an inferior doctor and can only be trusted with minimal cases such as Eva’s case. 

               Eva, throughout Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is portrayed as a feminine vision of Christ.  She is always in white and presented as an angelic figure.  It is hard to understand how a child, who “put herself on an equality with every creature that comes near her” (Yellin 94), could have resulted from the marriage of Augustine and Marie.  Eva is kind and understanding to everyone, especially the slaves; she sees the difficulty in their way of life.  The home that is provided for Eva is one where she obtains her ‘motherly’ affection from Mammy, a slave, and her ‘fatherly’ guidance from Tom, another slave. Somehow, in this environment, she “embodies an egalitarian Christian love.  Her vision undermines the authoritarian religiosity endorsed by Marie’s pro-slavery minister, who preaches that ‘all the orders and distinctions in society came from God; and that it was so appropriate, you know and beautiful, that some should be high and some low, and that some were born to rule and some to serve’ “ (Yellin, 94).  Eva takes stands on the issues of slavery against her mother, and religion against her father.  When Eva realizes she is going to die, she is concerned about her father being a Christian and that he should free Tom after she is gone.  The one who finally brings some sense of order into the St. Clare home is Ophelia St. Clare, Augustine’s cousin.   

               Ophelia comes down from the North to help Augustine with Eva and his home.  Marie, by this time, has constant sick headaches and no sense of organization or thinking about anything or anyone other than herself.  Ophelia is the “living impersonation of order, method and exactness.  In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock and as inexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most decided contempt and abomination anything of a contrary character” (Stowe, 156).  Ophelia stays busy from morning until night trying to bring some order to the St. Clare home.  Her presence there turns out to be for her own education.  Stowe presents Ophelia, not as a typical Northern woman, but as a person who believes that mistreatment of slaves is wrong and although she speaks against slavery, she still holds them separate and apart, and somewhat beneath her.  Her education takes place with Augustine purchasing a little girl named Topsy; Ophelia’s immediate response is “your house is so full of these little plagues, now, that a body can’t set down their foot without treading on ‘em” (Stowe, 237).  Stowe uses Ophelia to “serve as a model for southern women by Christianizing, educating, and emancipating her slaves, and for northern women by overcoming her racism” (Yellin, 96).  Ophelia’s education in overcoming racism and her constant needling of Augustine into a present course of action for freeing the slaves, along with that of Eva, puts her in the forefront as a strong woman of influence.

               These characters, when taken all together, represent the split in North and South before the Civil War.  Augustine represents the North, especially the nominally free states along the border; he “despises slavery, he describes its evils and decries its abuses, and he puts up with it” (Ammons, 166).  Marie, with her staunch advocacy of slavery, is seen as the South; she has been raised with slavery, believes that it is ordained by God, and that the slaves are there for her comforts.  Ophelia brings in a mix of Christian charity and will of immediate action; her representation of the nominally free states is expanded as she is educated to overcome her racism.  Her treatment of Topsy, once she is officially Topsy’s master, is one of compassion and motherly education.  Ophelia is affected tremendously by the attitude of Eva; Ophelia comments about Eva, “she is so loving!  After all, though, she’s no more than Christ-like, . . I wish I were like her. She might teach me a lesson” (Stowe, 281-282).  Eva’s whole personality is about equality and sacrifice.  Eva is always compassionate toward everyone from her mother, and her endless sick headaches, to the slaves, especially Mammy who tends to Eva’s mother.  Eva is not concerned with tradition or what, by law, is forbidden for the slaves, such as education; she is only interested in obeying a higher law.  Although she does not specifically state this, it is apparent in her references to Jesus and his sacrifice; Eva, at one point, is talking about the misery of the slaves on the boat coming down the Mississippi, and says, “I would be glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery.  I would die for them” (Stowe, 274).  Stowe uses this mix of complicated characters in the St. Clare family to demonstrate the different strata of attitudes and emotions within the country at this time. 

               Another interesting aspect to the St. Clare family is the intermix of religious fervor; each member of the St. Clare family has a different attitude and belief toward religion and its applications.  Augustine, although raised by a Christian mother, backs away from organized religion and refuses to attend church.  Augustine gives the impression of having once been a true believer but, now corrupted by the institution of slavery, feels that nothing can save him.  Marie, on the other hand, is convinced that slavery is Biblically ordained and wholly correct.  Religion is a social event for Marie; “Marie patronized good things, and she was going now, in full force,--diamonds, silk, and lace, and jewels, and all,--to a fashionable church, to be very religious.  Marie always made a point to be very pious on Sundays” (Stowe, 178).  Marie enjoys the sermons on Sunday because the preacher uses religion to justify slavery and her way of life.  Although Ophelia attends church with Marie, and is quite religious herself, her purpose of religion is compassion and education.  While enacting these virtues to prevent ‘shiftlessness’, Ophelia obtains her education on race and guidance from Eva on the application of her Christian virtues.  Although Eva does not say much about going to church, she is the embodiment of Christian virtue and compassion; her life is one of sacrifice and service.  Eva’s “religious significance comes not only from her own extreme religiosity but also from the protective veneration it arouses in the other characters in the book, and presumably in her readers.  Her religious identity, like her death, is confused with the response it evokes” (Douglas, 2).  Stowe, once again, uses Eva to draw the reader into the story, to make the reader feel empathy for the characters.

               Stowe strongly communicates Eva’s religious significance with the actions and words surrounding her death; “Eva’s deathbed appeal is saturated with pathos, selfless Christian love, and the exhortation to do the Word and be Christ-like” (Bush, 85).  Stowe brings the reader beside Eva’s deathbed and the reader hears these heartfelt pleas for people to reform their ways.  Eva, so good and pure, so angelic, appearing always in white, being sacrificed at this early age, invokes sympathy and horror on the part of the reader along with the natural picture of Christ, pure innocence, on the cross.  Eva calls for her father to gather all of the people at their house so she can speak to them; “I want to speak to you abut your souls. . . Many of you, I am afraid, are very careless.  You are thinking only about this world.  I want you to remember that there is a beautiful world, where Jesus is…It is for you, as much as me.  But, if you want to go there, you must not live idle, careless, thoughtless lives.  You must be Christians” (Stowe, 287).  Stowe uses Eva to speak directly to the reader; in this plea to the slaves and her family, the reader and those who occupy that imaginary room are united.  “In Eva are united the ministerial leader of evangelistic social reform and the prime actor in sentimental literature, the child (Sundquist, 25).  Eva’s moral significance in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is rivaled only by Uncle Tom himself. 

               In the St. Clare family, Stowe displays the strength of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; her “strength lay in letting blacks be seen through white eyes; so whites could identify with their plight.  This is important because whites, not blacks, commanded political power” (Reynolds, 156).  Stowe’s dynamic of the St. Clare family displays the fact that “both women and men are capable of Christian feeling and its opposite” (Yellin, 91).  The St. Clare family is a diverse group of characters within the same home.  Although different, Stowe also uses them to display the values of home and the influence it has on the characters; “Stowe’s emphasis on individual sympathy and on the doctrine of Higher Laws functions not only as a critique of chattel slavery but also as a critique of racist patriarchal capitalist culture in America. . [Stowe]. . endorses nineteenth-century radical ideas” (Yellin, 101).  Using individuals within the same family to represent opposing ideas of the North and South within the same country works to include both Northerners and Southerners.  Although Stowe does not portray all Southern people as inhumane, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not well received in the South; this was due to what the Southerners felt was an attack on their basic way of life, their economic foundation, and their Christian beliefs.  Stowe believes the crisis of slavery is a threat to the national union in terms of westward expansion and the Fugitive Slave Law.  Through the St. Clare’s demonstration of differing ideas, Stowe issues a call to arms, even to be answered by children such as Eva, to eradicate slavery from the nation.

WORKS CITED

Ammons, Elizabeth. “Stowe’s Dream of the Mother-Savior: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Women Writers Before the 1920’s.” New Essays on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ed. Eric J. Sundquist.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Bush, Jr., Harold K. American Declarations: Rebellion and Repentance in American Cultural History. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Douglas, Ann. “The Legacy of American Victorianism: The Meaning of Little Eva.” The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Avon Books, 1977.

Reynolds, Moira Davison. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Mid-Nineteenth Century United  States: Pen and Conscience. London: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 1985.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

Sundquist, Eric J., ed. Introduction. New Essays on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. London: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Yellin, Jean Fagan. “Doing It Herself: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Woman’s Role in the Slavery Crisis”. New Essays on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ed. Eric J. Sundquist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.