LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Student Presentation on Reading Selections 2006

Monday 23 October: Abraham Lincoln, N 757-760. Harriet Beecher Stowe, selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, N 771-806. Thoreau, N 837-853 (“Resistance to Civil Government”).

selection reader / discussion leader: Leigh Ann Moore

http://www.harrietbeecherstowe.org/life/  - Harriet Beecher Stowe web site

Course Objectives:

Objective 1a.  Romantic Spirit or Ideology - Attitudes associated with Romanticism, desire and loss, rebellion, and the individual separate from the masses

The quest or journey of the romance narrative involves crossing physical borders or transgressing social or psychological boundaries in order to attain or regain some transcendent goal or dream.

A Romantic hero or heroine may appear empty or innocent of anything except readiness or desire to transform or self-invent.

 Objective 2: Cultural Issues: America as Romanticism, and vice versa   

Americans as racially divided but historically related people develop "Old and New Canons" of Romantic literature. 

The USA's conflicted identity as an economically liberal but culturally conservative nation creates "Old and New Canons" also in terms of gender, in which masculine traditions of freedom and the frontier contrast with feminine traditions of relations and domesticity. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was the seventh of twelve children born into a close family; her father was Reverend Lyman Beecher.  Stowe’s father preached anti-slavery sermons answering the question of whether Missouri should be admitted to the union as a slave or a free state.  Lyman's dynamic preaching, religious energy and commitment had a profound impact on all of his children.  Stowe is best known as the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which helped push the abolitionist cause and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.  A combination of the death of her baby boy in 1849 (by cholera) and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 (this Act made it a crime for citizens of Free states to give aid to runaway slaves) was the impetus for the construction of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Stowe had very little first hand knowledge of slavery.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in installments in The National Era, a weekly abolitionist newsletter.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold over 10,000 copies in the first week and was a best seller of its day.

Stowe wrote in an informal conversational style and presented herself as an average wife and mother.  She uses domestic situations to underscore the abuses of slavery.  In this way, Stowe humanized slavery, using stories of individuals and families, specifically speaking to mothers.  This is especially true with the character of Eliza.  It is easy to believe that Stowe’s own experience of loosing her son contributed to the realistic picture she painted of Eliza’s flight and concern for her child.  Stowe uses descriptive language and specifically targets women readers when she talks about families, mothers, and children.  Stowe also repeatedly speaks directly to the reader, imploring them to condemn this institution of slavery, now that they know what it entails. 

Speaking to the reader about Eliza’s plight:

"If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,--if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape,--how fast could you walk?  How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,--the little sleepy head on your shoulder,--the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?”  (Page 774)

And when Eliza is speaking to Mr. & Mrs. Bird:

“He was my comfort and pride, day and night; and, ma’am, they were going to take him away from me,--to sell him,--sell him down south, ma’am, to go all alone,--a baby that had never been away from his mother in his life!  I couldn’t stand it, ma’am.  I knew I never should be good for anything, if they did; and when I knew the papers were signed, and he was sold, I took him and came off in the night; and they chased me,--the man that bought him, and some of Mas’r’s folks,--and they were coming down right behind me, and I heard ‘em.  I jumped right on to the ice; and how I got across, I don’t know,--but, first I knew, a man was helping me up the bank.”  (Page 788)

In each of these passages, Stowe is justifying Eliza’s flight from her situation.  In the first passage, she is pleading with the reader to understand Eliza’s problem and for the readers to put themselves in Eliza’s position.  In the second passage, Eliza is speaking with Senator and Mrs. Bird.  Mr. & Mrs. Bird have just completed a conversation concerning the Fugitive Slave Act with Mrs. Bird trying to explain to her husband how unfair the law is.  Even within this conversation, Mrs. Bird states that it is the responsibility of the slave owners to assure their slaves do not run away by treating them well.  This is contradicted when Eliza explains that she had a “Good master.” 

Stowe uses descriptive language to paint pictures of slavery.  In this, she makes the reader feel emotionally invested in the characters; the reader feels the desire and loss, the need for the journey, and the reality that needs to be changed.

Questions:

1. How does Stowe use her narrative style of speaking directly to the reader help draw her pictures of slavery?  How important is the idea of motherhood in Stowe’s accomplishing her goal of communicating the position of slaves?

2. How does Stowe flip traditional presentation of gender and color roles?  How do these contribute to the redefining of canons in romantic literature?

3. How does Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin fit within the context of Lincoln and Thoreau?  How does this literature portray the emergence of yet a second Declaration of Independence?

References:

http://www.harrietbeecherstowe.org/life

Baym, Nina, Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Sixth Edition.  New York and London: WW Norton & Company.  2003.