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by Mary Moss | |
| 1 | Overcoming the death of a loved one can be one of life’s most difficult tasks, especially when that loss involves a parent or a child. Author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe grieved over death as both mother and child. When she was only five years old, her mother Roxana Foote Beecher, died of tuberculosis. Later at age 38, she lost her infant son Charley to an outbreak of cholera. Together these two traumatic events amplified her condemnation of slavery and ultimately influenced the writing of one of America’s most controversial novels, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. |
| 2 | On June 14, 1811 Harriet Beecher Stowe became the seventh child born into the religiously devout family of Lyman and Roxana Beecher. Lyman Beecher was a highly respected, but poor clergyman. Roxana, raised in culture and refinement, humbly dedicated herself to serving her husband and children. After giving birth to nine babies in fifteen years, 41-year-old Roxana received a premonition of death. She shared her feelings with her startled husband: “I do not think that I will be with you long. I have had a vision of heaven and its blessedness” (qtd. in Wagenknecht 24). She told of her peace and joy in Christ and of her willingness to leave her family behind. Shortly after this revelation, the rapid symptoms of tuberculosis began to assault her already weak and frail body. |
| 3 | First she was taken by a chill; next came fever and exhaustion. Towards the end, her family helplessly looked on as she endured severe spastic pain to her abdomen. Before she died Roxana told her family that she was not praying for life. Instead she felt religious triumph and a joyous anticipation of heaven. Because of her meek and resigned spirit, Roxana was accorded sainthood by the Beecher family. Henry Beecher wrote this of his mother: “[She] is to me what the Virgin Mary is to a devout Catholic” (qtd. in Wagenknecht 21). Harriet also felt a powerful reverence for her mother: “She was of a temperament peculiarly restful and peace-giving… Her union of spirit with God, unruffled and unbroken even from early childhood seemed to impart to her an equilibrium and healthful placidity that no earthly reverses ever disturbed” (qtd. in Wagenknecht 23). Harriet also believed that her mother’s “memory and example had more influence in molding her family, in deterring from evil and exciting to good, than the living presence of many mothers” (qtd. in Hedrick, “Perfection”). |
| 4 | Those who read Uncle Tom’s Cabin will find the death of Stowe’s mother memorialized in the death of Eva St. Clare. Stowe claimed that the pain she felt as a child from losing her own mother helped her identify with the pain felt by African-American children and mothers sold apart under slavery. Stowe later revealed the intense connection she possessed for the character of little Eva. She said that writing about Eva’s death “affected [her] so deeply that [she] could not write another word for two weeks... (qtd. in Wagenknecht 165). |
| 5 | In 1832, Harriet’s father moved the family to the frontier city of Cincinnati, where he became the president of Lane Seminary. The school was well known for its progressive attitudes and before long it evolved into a center for abolitionists. One of the free thinkers employed there was Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of biblical literature. When Harriet was 25 years old, she and Calvin were married. Eventually they had seven children together. As the middle-class family struggled with finances, Harriet tried to make a financial contribution by writing for local religious periodicals. Throughout her long literary career she would also write poems, travel books, biographical sketches, and children’s books, as well as adult novels. |
| 6 | In January 1848, Stowe’s sixth child, Samuel Charles was born. She developed a special attachment to this child because he was the only one of her children that she was able to breastfeed successfully. In a letter to a sister-in-law she relates, “After ten years of trial God at length has given me a baby that I can nurse myself - My little Charlie is larger and more thriving than any child I ever had… I nurse him exclusively… and have an abundance [of milk] for him and I have thought often… what a comfort it was to have him by my side at night and in my arms by day…” (qtd. in Hedrick, Harriet 185). |
| 7 | Because Calvin Stowe’s ministry often took him away from home, he and Harriet maintained their relationship through letter writing. Many of Harriet’s letters gave detailed descriptions of their growing baby. When Charley was six months old, Calvin wrote Harriet, “You are so proud of your baby, one would think you never saw a baby before.” Later he wrote, “You alarm me with your constant eulogies of Charlie. You set your heart upon him so much, I fear the Lord will find it necessary to take him away from us” (qtd. in Hedrick, Harriet 188). |
| 8 | American Literature professor Isabelle White of Eastern Kentucky University points out that during the 19th century, mothers like Harriet watched fearfully for signs of precocity in their children and often interpreted their children’s deaths as a sign that they were too good for this world (104). Stowe wrote of these special children in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye, when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children - hope not to retain that child; for the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes” (228). |
| 9 | In June of 1849, a cholera epidemic broke out in Cincinnati. On June 29, Harriet wrote to her husband that 116 people had been reported dead in one day. Before the scourge was over, 9000 would die within three miles of the Stowe household (Hedrick, Harriet 189, 193). On July 16, baby Charley came down with the dreaded disease. He suffered for eight long days before he finally died. Stowe also suffered as she helplessly watched her child endure violent diarrhea, vomiting, muscle cramps, and circulatory collapse. Extreme cholera also caused acute dehydration. It turned its victims into shriveled caricatures of their former selves. The skin became black and blue, the hands and feet drawn and puckered. |
| 10 | Stowe wrote her husband, “I have just seen [Charley] in his death agony, looked on his imploring face when I could not help nor soothe nor do one thing, not one, to mitigate his cruel suffering, do nothing but pray in my anguish that he might die soon” (qtd. in Hedrick, Harriet 191). In a letter to a friend Stowe wrote, “There were circumstances about his death of such peculiar bitterness of what might seem almost cruel suffering, that I felt that I could never be consoled for it, unless it should appear that this crushing of my own heart might enable me to work out some great good to others” (qtd. in Hedrick, Harriet 192). Later Stowe would say, “It was at [Charley’s] dying bed, and at his grave that [she] learnt what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn away from her” (qtd. in Hedrick, Harriet 193). |
| 11 | Doctors today tell us that the pain of losing a loved one is a natural and necessary part of mourning. Two of the emotions that grieving individuals are likely to feel are anger and guilt. Sometimes there is a tendency to hold these feelings in, but is essential that they be released in order for the healing process to occur (Lacy). Biographer Joan Hedrick explains how death and loss created special problems for 19th century evangelicals like Stowe. If she felt any anger towards God for taking away her baby, her religious upbringing would have not allowed her to reveal it. Also, “if she grieved too hard or too long, would not God think that she loved a mere mortal more than God himself?” (“Perfection”). Instead of helping the mourner, these religious admonitions encouraged emotional suppression that only prolonged recovery. For Stowe, they may have even increased her feelings of anger and guilt. |
| 12 | Returning to daily household chores should have helped Stowe deal with her grief. But she had a houseful of children to tend, and her typical domestic responsibilities were already enormous and overwhelming. Because of his ministry, Calvin was seldom there to share Harriet’s grief and to give her the physical support she desperately needed. Cultural rituals such as visiting the gravesite of her beloved baby could have also helped Stowe work through her personal loss. But again, she was denied this privilege when the family pulled up roots and moved to Brunswick, Maine not long after Charley’s death. |
| 13 | To add to the stress, Stowe soon gave birth to another son, also named Charley. Although she hoped he might, Stowe had to admit to herself that this new Charley would never take the place of the old one. In a letter to a friend she wrote, “I often think of what you said to me that another child would not fill the place of the old one… so I find it - for tho he is so like [him] I do not feel for him that same love which I felt for Charley - it is different - I shall never love another as I did him - he was my ‘summer child’ ” (qtd. in Hedrick, Harriet 199). |
| 14 | One of the customs of the 19th century was for grieving women to create physical objects that embodied the spirit of the departed. For most women, this work involved some type of craft or handiwork. But for Stowe it meant writing. Working on Uncle Tom’s Cabin was like artistic therapy for her. The thoughts and feelings that she suppressed earlier were let loose and worked through over and over again in the suffering of her characters. Instead of holding in her anger towards God, she was able to heap it upon the patriarchal institution of slavery. Each time a character in her book felt the pain of separation from a loved one, Stowe felt it too. |
| 15 | Stowe believed that death could appear as a blessed deliverer to those who were weary of the constant struggles and despair of life: “Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?” (qtd. in Hedrick, “Perfection”). Stowe also believed that the Kingdom of God comes to the lowly through suffering and oppression: “We poor souls are often times wounded, discouraged and beaten down by suffering, but God gave us a captain whom suffering made perfect” (qtd. in Hedrick, “Perfection”). In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe united her religious beliefs and her feelings as a grieving child and mother. The suffering and death of her mother Roxana and of her child Charley translated first into the suffering of oppressed slaves and finally into the suffering of Jesus Christ. |
| 16 | The story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a melodrama. Each character is sentimentally portrayed as he or she is negatively affected by the “peculiar institution” of slavery. Uncle Tom is the Christian hero of the novel. He is a trusted farm manager on a Kentucky plantation whose owner has fallen into serious debt. Putting his material needs over his personal ties, Master Shelby sends his loyal friend Tom "down the river" to be sold. Tom’s journeys take him to two plantations that are extremely different in nature, the first one belonging to Augustine St. Clare. |
| 17 | Had Tom not been cruelly separated from his wife and children, he might have cherished his life at his new home, for it was here that Tom developed a special relationship with lovely little Eva St. Clare. She was like an angel stepped out of the pages of Tom’s New Testament. Where ever she went she spread happiness and light. Stowe tells us that Tom becomes attached to the girl because “he has the soft impressible nature of his kindly race, ever yearning toward the simple and childlike” (127). |
| 18 | Tom exerts a great influence over the St. Clare household as he teaches the family by example what it means to be a true Christian. As Eva’s health deteriorates, she depends on Tom more than anyone else. He becomes like a mother to her. He is sensitive to her needs, easing her suffering by carrying her from place to place, sitting with her, and singing their favorite songs. Because Eva loves Tom so dearly, she is often inclined to confront her selfish family about his captivity. The evils of slavery eventually cause Eva’s fragile heart to break. Isabelle White claimed “The pain from which Eva suffered is intended to break the hearts of readers, creating sympathy for the suffering slaves and outrage at the evil institution that oppresses them” (106). Through Eva’s celestial nature, Stowe draws a parallel to Christ. The “blessed little lamb” is too good for this world and succumbs to an early death by tuberculosis. Eva dies for the sins of slavery in the same way that Jesus Christ died for the sins of all mankind. |
| 19 | Shortly after Eva’s death, Tom is sold again and driven to the God forsaken plantation of Simon Legree. Here he meets a slave woman named Cassy who has lost two of her children to the slave trade. Her experiences have tormented her to the point of mental illness, so that when she has another baby, she murders it rather than have it stolen and taken into slavery. Tom comforts Cassy with Bible verses and goes about doing good works among all his fellow slaves. But like little Eva, Tom is destined to endure a martyr’s death. He is repeatedly whipped and fatally beaten for remaining true to his Christian standards and for not revealing the whereabouts of two escaped slaves. Professor Isabelle White believes, “Through the deaths of Eva and Tom, Stowe asserts that a traditionally powerless person can become powerful by selflessly dying for others. Death becomes a means of breaking through extraordinary human limitations” (103). |
| 20 | The story also focuses on the journey of another slave from the Shelby plantation. Eliza Harris is a beautiful mulatto and a personal maid to Mrs. Shelby. When Eliza learns that Mr. Shelby has agreed to sell her infant son Harry, she flees from her beloved home and heads north, towards Canada and freedom. She is willing to take every risk in to order to keep her son. As Eliza scrambles across the frozen Ohio River, Stowe employs a common literary metaphor. Each dangerous step brings Eliza closer to the opposing destinations of death and deliverance. When writing about this scene, Stowe was able to accomplish the grief work of carrying her own baby Charley tenderly and lovingly to that shore where his sufferings were ended. |
| 21 | Eventually Eliza is reunited with her husband George, a mulatto slave who refuses to live any longer under the domination of an abusive master. With the help of the Underground Railroad, the entire family manages to elude hired slave catchers and make a successful entry into Canada. In time they are reunited with other family members who they have not seen since childhood. At the end of the novel, this whole group of freed slaves immigrates to Africa and endeavors to convert their homeland to Christianity. |
| 22 | The critical reception of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was both positive and negative depending on what part of the world the critic came from. French writer George Sand loved Uncle Tom’s Cabin and hoped that reading it would bring about “the spontaneous and generous intuitions of [the slaveholder’s] heart” and remove from them their “prejudices and established modes of thought” (459). Many others loved the book too. When it was published on March 20, 1852, 10,000 books sold in the first week and 300,000 by the end of the first year. Within two years over 2 million copies had been sold. |
| 23 | But many American readers objected to the rhetoric of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, especially those who lived in the South. Three years after the book was printed, 14 proslavery novels were written to contradict Stowe. Southern literary critic, George Holmes, thought that in writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe showed “a shameless disregard of the truth” and it was his opinion that she had “forfeited the claim to be considered a lady” (468). Susan Bradford wrote, after her home state of Florida seceded from the Union, “If Mrs. Beecher Stowe had died before she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, this would never have happened…Isn’t it strange how much harm a pack of lies can do?” (qtd. in Galli). |
| 24 | Today’s readers may also find little credibility in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe portrays her characters with the romantic racialism of the 19th century. Slaves that are of mixed blood (mulatto) are portrayed as more attractive and intelligent than the full-blooded Negro. In chapter 2, Stowe describes Eliza as possessing “that peculiar air of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases to be a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women” (9-10). In chapter 4, we are introduced to Tom’s wife, Chloe, who has the stereotypical “Aunt Jemima” characteristics of a full-blooded black woman. She is jolly and plump, not too intelligent, but one heck of a good cook (17). Under modern-day scrutiny, Stowe’s writing shows a paternalistic attitude towards blacks that implies white intellectual and physical superiority. But her work also shows a belief in black equality and even superiority in the realms of Christian behavior. |
| 25 | Uncle Tom’s Cabin had other strong points too. First of all, Stowe’s portrayal of social life reflected an awareness of the complex culture in which she lived. Her writing grasped and communicated many of the common opinions about slavery in 19th century society. Next, Stowe had the wisdom not to put all the blame of slavery on southern men and women, who were merely caught in its claws. Instead she held Northerners equally responsible because of their complicity and hypocrisy. |
| 26 | In a time when many whites claimed slavery had "good effects" on blacks, Uncle Tom’s Cabin portrayed the pain and suffering of parents and children as they were torn from each other’s arms. Stowe tried to tap into the feelings of white, middle-class parents, to enlist their sympathies for slave parents through powerful religious metaphors. Indeed, the characters and situations in Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought out intense emotions in the readers of the 19th century. Like Stowe, many readers grieved over the deaths of Eva and Tom as they related the events to their own personal losses. Many were also able to associate their grief with the tragedy of slavery and thus were aroused to social action. |
| 27 | By its power to join so many in a community of grief, Uncle Tom’s Cabin suggested that the divisions between black and white, and North and South might be healed. But while many people were inspired, as a whole the book had more of a divisive effect than a unifying one. The controversy it caused helped bring about a sickness far worse than any this country had ever known. This epidemic of contention would kill more than 620,000 before it was over. Soon, every mother and child in America would be grieving over the Civil War. |
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Nominated and Edited by Dr. Jackie Flowers, History Instructor
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