"Unspeakable things do remain unspoken and the worst of the slave experience continues to search for its words" - A critical take on the Representation of Slavery in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a very significant piece of American Literature. However, there are always critics out there that dig under the surface of a story to really look at what is happening and how the author expresses the novel. Sophia Cantave digs into Stowe’s novel in her critical essay “Who Gets to Create the Lasting Images? The Problem of Black Representation in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

            In Cantave’s essay she focuses on how black people are presented in Stowe’s novel and how that effects how the novel is interpreted in modern day context.  Harriet Beecher Stowe was a white woman living in the Midwest during the time of slavery. Her family was well-off and was highly religious. One argument that Cantave repeated brings up is how can someone like Stowe, a white, middle class, woman, write about the harshness and cruelty of slavery? How can that be an accurate interpretation? Cantave points out that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written the way it was so the topic could be readable. Josephine Donovan adds that Stowe once said that “the book is a very inadequate representation of slavery [because] slavery, in some of its workings, is too dreadful for the purposes of art. A work which should represent it strictly as it is would be a work which could not be read; all works which ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they cannot succeed,” (585). Slavery is a very harsh subject. No one can adequately portray the cruel nature of slavery on a piece of paper. And if you could, who would read it? Who would want to? To write about slavery one needs to mix pain and pleasure; include both sides of any spectrum. “By mixing the tragic and the laughable, Uncle Tom’s Cabin gives white people and black people a way to read slavery together,” (585). To discuss such horrible events in time you almost have to joke about it. People do it for all different types of horrific events. People need comic relief moments. Cantave, who agrees with Stowe making slavery readable, also thinks that these comic moments reinforce black subordination. It also takes away from the actual slave experience. All of this as done so “the nation as a whole felt more comfortable reading [about slavery],” (585). But at what cost?

            Cantave narrows in on this representation of black people and how it has been used in modern times. She begins to question how useful this book is today and whether or not it should be used in classes or not. Pairing slavery and black people with comic moments has had repercussions on our society. “Stowe inadvertently provided a way for white people, when threatened or challenged, to regulate black achievement, black national mobility, and black cultural expression,” (586). Black culture is always being defined by slavery. When tragic events are paired with comic events it takes away from the actual tragedy. It allows the tragedy to be overlooked or not taken as seriously. It’s an outlet for white people who can’t read about what actually happened in the South.

            Cantave also discusses what Black people thought about the characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A general consensus was that Tom was unrealistic. In reality someone in Tom’s position wouldn’t speak out against their masters. Others thought that Stowe did a remarkable job is shedding “light upon the horrible and inhuman agency of slavery,” (589). Another former slave said that Stowe “didn’t know what slavery was so left out the worst of it” (589). Black people were either in favor of Stowe’s work or not. It’s still debated among white and black people whether or not Stowe’s representation was accurate or not. Regardless of the debate Stowe’s novel was very powerful for the time period. The main question is what effect does it have today?

            As Americans I personally feel like Black history and slavery is told by White people. If we just look at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it was written by a white woman. I understand that she wrote it the way she did because slavery is impossible to describe down to each gruesome detail. And what white person would buy a book about slavery written by a black person (in that time)? To get Stowe’s point across and to the audience that could do something about it she needed to write the novel so white people would read it and interpret it the way she hoped for; to see that slavery should be stopped and that black lives matter. But I do agree with Cantave. What does this sugar-coated representation of slavery do for us today? We can’t keep giving ourselves comic relief moments because we are either too ashamed of our ancestors or because we can’t stomach the truth of what slavery was actually like. We can’t keep turning to white authors to interpret black lives. When studying slavery we shouldn’t look at how it affected white peoples’ lives or how it changed American life. Slavery is about African Americans and what they went through, not what Americans went through while watching the harsh ways of slavery. I think that Stowe did a remarkable job depicting slavery in a way that made white people empathize with slaves and showed slaves as strong, determined, individuals. She accomplished what she set out to do. But as we look onto the novel today it should be with a more observant eye. We can’t just look at the surface, there’s more to uncover about slavery. The words just haven’t come out yet.