浅析汤姆叔叔的小屋所蕴含的女性力量毕业论文.doc

浅析汤姆叔叔的小屋所蕴含的女性力量毕业论文Table of ContentsAcknowledgements.摘要.Abstract. Table of Contents Introduction. 1Chapter One Power of Female as a Mother in Anti-slavery31.1 Maternal Love of Eliza Urging Her to Resist31.2 Augustines Mother Affecting Him with Love .4Chapter Two Power of Female as a Wife in Anti-slavery62.1 Mrs. Shelbys Charity to Her Slaves. 62.2 Mrs. Birds Attitude toward Fugitive Slave Law . 7Chapter Three Power of Female as a Member of the Society in Anti-slavery93.1 Evas Cosmic Love .9 3.2 Grandma Stephens Influence on Tom Loker.11Conclusion.12Works Cited.13II许昌学院本科生毕业论文IntroductionThroughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the anti-slavery forces debated not only the status of the black in the United States but also their physical and psychological nature. When Uncle Toms Cabin was published in the abolitionist journal National Era in June 1851, the crisis over slavery in the United States reached a high pitch, and this novel immediately became a major weapon for people against slavery. “Appearing in two-volume book form in March 1852, Uncle Toms Cabin set off an astounding public response which was unique in the history of American publishing. Its first edition of 5,000 was gone in four days, and in one year, it sold more than 300,000 copies” (Yang, 1999:174). Uncle Toms Cabin makes a powerful attack on the evils of the slavery and presents an earthly struggle for the black emancipation in the United States. Therefore, its vital role in the abolitionist cause is beyond question. Even the Civil War novelist John De Forest, inaugurating the search for “The Great American Novel” in an 1868 essay in The Nation, thought Uncle Toms Cabin was the best candidate. However, even though Uncle Toms Cabin helped instigate the Civil War, it then ceased to have value once its purpose had been accomplished. The books phenomenal popularity is in its own day and in the century following the Civil War it has served to cast suspicion. The most controversial aspect is that many blacks feel their images are smeared in Uncle Toms Cabin for it has touched the sensitive zone of black inferiority, which is frequently depicted by Stowe through her racial stereotypes (Liu, 89). Uncle Tom, who is completely black, is too passive, simple and submissive, and becomes a symbol of the lackey (Lin, 69). Moreover, many free blacks, who have opted to stay in the country and fight, have a complaint against the novels end. “One writer in an Afro-American newspaper vehemently protested, Uncle Tom must be killed, George Harris exiled! Heaven for dead Negroes! Liberia for living mulattoes. Neither can live on the American continent. Death or banishment is our doom, say the Slaveocrats, the Colonizationists and, save the markMrs. Stowe”(Sundquist, 69).Harriet Beecher Stowe, with her novel Uncle Toms Cabin, had aroused the attention of Americans to slavery and thereby influenced the course of American history (Yang, 2006:59). Since her novel helped and convinced the nation to go to war and to free its slaves, Abraham Lincoln was said to have exclaimed in 1862 after the Civil War, “So this is the little lady who started our big war” (Zhou and Luo, 114). Undoubtedly Uncle Toms Cabin had affected the slavery abolishing. However, for slavery was abolished, it lost its popularity on anti-slavery gradually. According to Stowes broad depiction of the role of women in the novel, nowadays more and more critics pay attention to the ideology of femininity in Uncle Toms Cabin. Regarding the social background where Stowe lived, they find it reasonable that she emphasizes womens roles in the fight against chattel slavery in America. On the one hand, by 1851, when Uncle Toms Cabin was published, the debate over what American women could do to end slavery had ragged for more than a decade. On the other hand, it was also published with the advent of two crucial events. One was the meeting at Seneca Fall, which was the peak of feminist movement, where feminists had spelled out their demands for full participation in American life, and the other was the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law which forbade the Northern people to help the runaway slaves, and required them to cooperate in the capture of fugitives. Stowe works in her feminist beliefs that women are equal to men in intelligence, bravery, and spiritual strength. The ideology of femininity and domesticity in the 19th century is that mens place is at the market, while womens place is at the domestic center of home; Stowe accepts this standard definition of women confined to the domestic sphere, but she also displays a facility for converting essentially repressive concepts of femininity and domesticity into a positive system of values in which women are more influential than men and superior to them (Cao, 42). Stowe asserts that women should limit the expression of slavery to the domestic circle and argues that the crucial need for women is not to exert political power but to use their female force to promote a national spirit of candor, forbearance, charity and peace (Qiu, 61). Through three aspects that the female is viewed as a mother, a wife and a member of the society, this paper elaborates on the point that females in Uncle Toms Cabin have shown active power in anti-slavery within domestic life.Chapter One Power of Female as a Mother in Anti-slaveryMother is a term that holds special charm for Stowe; Stowes mother is very polished and retiring and comes from a “better” family, reading widely and speaking French. Stowe recalls her mother as “one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic natures in whom all around seems to find comfort and repose” (Yang, 1999:175). Stowe considers her readers as mothers and idealizes the experience of motherhood. A lot of mothers such as Eliza, Augustines mother and so on are warmly celebrated in Uncle Toms Cabin for their morality, integrity, dignity, courage, forbearance and above all the female power.1.1 Maternal Love of Eliza Urging Her to ResistTo settle the financial problem, Mr. Shelby, Elizas master, decides to sell Tom and Elizas son. When learning her beloved son will be bought by a brutal trader, Eliza turns pale and gasps for breath, as if someone has struck her with a deadly blow. Finally, Eliza automatically obeys the voice of nature and attempts her rescue. Considering the kindness the mistress gives her, Eliza leaves a letter which pleads with her mistress to forgive her leaving and understand her. Nothing can prevent her from being with her only child. People on the Shelby plantation are shocked by Elizas escape, for she is just a domestic, timid and little woman. Whats more, she is also a Christian woman and she once says to her husband: “I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldnt be a Christian” (Stowe, 17). However, actually, she escapes bravely just because of the maternal love.The danger of the child blends into her mind; with a confused and stunning sense of the risk, Eliza is running away from the only home she has ever known. The immense strength of her love for her child is especially emphasized. In the course of escaping, every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow can send the blood backward to her heart and quicken her footsteps. What is stronger than all is maternal love; Eliza feels a sense of comfort with the weight of the boy in her arms and every flutter of fear seems to increase the supernatural power to escape. One thousand lives seem to be controlled in Elizas hands when the slave-catchers nearly come up with her before the freezing Ohio River. With the strength as if the God gave, Eliza flies a leap onto one floating ice to another. “The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment”(Stowe, 62). Her stockings cut from her feet while blood marks every step, but she sees nothing and feels nothing. “It is a desperate leap-impossible to anything but madness and despair; and Haley, Sam and Andy, instinctively cried out and lifted up their hands, as she did it” (Stowe, 61).As a nearly perfect woman according to the cult of womanhood, Eliza surprises the U.S.A. with her courage and strong will. She runs away with her child at night and takes the risk of crossing the Ohio River by jumping over the ice floes. Its just the motherly devotion that gives her power to carry out her frenzied, desperate flight from slavery.1.2 Augustines Mother Affecting Him with LoveAugustine St. Clare is a figure different from his slave-holding father, brother and society. From his willful and autocratic father, Augustine has inherited all the perquisites of noblesse, but from his mother, he has inherited a deeply sensitive nature, an abhorrence of slavery, and a sense of obligation. Augustine is tender, soft, sympathetic, dreamy and not at all interested in business. He neither brings himself to discipline the slaves nor to force them, for he thinks his slaves are simply outcasts in a society that has not taught them anything useful and that its not their fault if they sometimes dont behave elegantly. As a result, he always remains charitable and sympathetic toward his slaves. In a sense, this kind of characteristic is what his mother makes of. All his mothers exhortations affect him deeply. She attempts to influence her sons actions in regard to slavery. When Augustine is a child, his mother once points up to the stars in the sky and instructs him: “See, there, Augustte! The poorest, meanest soul on our place will be living. When all these stars are gone forever,will live as long as God lives” (Stowe, 232).In Augustines opinion, his mother is an angel, whose morality purifies his mind. He once says to Miss Ophelia: She probably was of mortal birth；as far as I could observe，there was no trace of any human weakness or error about herShe was a direct embodiment and personification of the new Testament, a living fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for in no other way than by its truth.(Stowe, 229)Augustine witnesses the scene that his mother is against slavery with every atom of her being. He dies with the word “mother” on his lips, realizing he fails to heed the example of his mother.From Eliza and Augustines mother, who have a positive effect on their sons, Stowe reflects her deep emotion at maternal love. In Uncle Toms Cabin, mothers provide children with love and also teach them to internalize the value of love.Chapter Two Power of Female as a Wife in Anti-slaveryStowe appeals American females to recognize their true roles as the guardians of American morals. During the process of assuming this role, she argues they can exert a wise and appropriate influence, and that it will most certainly tend to bring an end, not only to slavery but also to unnumbered other evils and wrongs.2.1 Mrs. Shelbys Charity toward Her SlavesMrs. Shelby, a Christian woman, tries to use charity and morality to get on with her slaves. Although a member of the slaveholding class, Mrs. Shelby is powerless to prevent the slave sales. Forbidden by her husband from using her “practical mind” to settle their financial affairs, Mrs. Shelby devotes much of her time to the efforts for the comfort, instruction and improvement of her slaves and is greatly admired by them.A wife, as it sees on the Shelby plantation, may actually be able to do very little to oppose slavery, but she can at least resist mildly and in other words, she can at least protest, conspire and connive. These actions may not be much effective, but at least can help those poor slaves to a certain degree. As to that Eliza can escape successfully, the help from Mrs. Shelby undoubtedly plays a vital role. Mrs. Shelby suggests her slaves, Sam and Andy, had better not seize Eliza. They two, who are eager to please their mistress, realize her intention that she doesnt want Eliza captured. So instead of helping Haley to catch Eliza they do utmost to delay the catching time. Otherwise, they probably catch Eliza and her boy with hands down.To Mr. Shelby, Tom is only a slave or a kind of property, but to Mrs. Shelby, he is a man with soul. When Mrs. Shelby learns that her husband will sell Tom who once rocked him in his arms as a baby, she feels shameful of him despite having little power to prevent. She refuses to sneak away and hide like her husband, while Tom is being bound and carried off: “No, no, said Mrs. Shelby; Ill be in no sense accomplice or help in this cruel business. Ill go and see poor old Tom. God help him, in his distress” (Stowe, 36). She enters the cabin of Toms, comforts him and promises she will buy him back one day. Her tears break down barriers between lowly slaves and their properly sympathetic master.Stowe tends to depict her females as active rather than passive, influential rather than submissive, and strong rather than weak. Mrs. Shelby is a good example. The fact that she fails in protecting her slaves from being sold is not due to any weakness on her part, but is a sign of her husbands incompetence in managing his estate and so is her later failure to buy Tom back (Sundquist, 89). As Mrs. Shelby offers to give her husband a hand in his financial affairs, Mr. Shelby accuses her of knowing nothing of business. Later, as she offers the practical way of earning money herself by teaching music lessons, her husband accuses her of “degrading” herself. It is only after her husbands death that she is able to give her ability full play. “Mrs. Shelby, with characteristic energy, applies herself to the work of straightening the entangled web of affairs” (Stowe, 430), and tries to redeem the old slave, Tom. So Mrs. Shelby, as a wife, has developed the notion of her moral superiority of females within the domestic life.2.2 Mrs. Birds Attitude toward Fugitive Slave LawMrs. Bird is a blushing, little woman, of about four feet in height, and with mild blue eyes. She is a desirable good woman who is timid, weak, angelic, and sometimes prone to defer; this is a typical description of the heroine in the 19th century sentimental novels. However, instead of being always submissive to her husband, Mrs. Bird turns out to be resolute and handsome and has a determined mind toward immoral things. Perhaps among females of “the nominally free states” Mrs. Bird is the most important model for Stowes readers, whose involvement with slaves and slavery is frequent. She persists in questioning her husband about the passage of a new Fugitive Slave Law, which forbids the Northern people to help the runaway slaves, and requires them to cooperate in the capture of fugitives. Mr. Bird is a senator, a shrewd politician who manipulates things in such a way as to serve his or his class interest. Thus, he supports the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. By contrast, Mrs. Bird judges things by the Bible and sympathy. Knowing her husband supports the passage of this law, she says angrily to him:You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless，houseless creatures! Its a shameful, wicked abominable law. And I will break it, for one, the first time I get a chance；and I hope I shall have chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass；if a woman cant give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures，just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives. Poor things.(Stowe, 81) When Mr. Bird accuses her of “getting to be a politician all at once”(Stowe, 82) she explains her concern is not political but moral. She condemns the measure and attacks her husbands political position. Finally, she has successfully persuaded her husband to save the poor Eliza and her boy. The world of Uncle Toms Cabin is a fortunate one for northern white females who oppose chattel slavery within the domestic sphere. Swayed by her argument and actions or Elizas desperate situation, Mr. Bird makes plans to transport the fugitives, Eliza and her boy, to a remote place.Like females of the slaveholding states, this northern woman, Mrs. Bird, encounters slavery in her home. Stowe permits her to avoid suffering any adverse consequences when she takes action to oppose slavery.Chapter Three Power of Female as a Member of the Society in Anti-slaveryFrom the above analysis, it can safely come to the conclusion that in Uncle Toms Cabin either as a mother or as a wife, the female influence is carried out only in domestic spheres; they have never walked out of their front doors. Similarly, as a member of the society, females in this novel also express their opposition to slavery within the domestic circle.3.1 Evas Cosmic LoveEvangeline St. Clare is a child, a female and a typical figure of Christ, descending not from Adam but from Eve. Her face has a “dreamy earnestness”; her hair flouts like “a cloud”; her eyes shine with a “deep spiritual gravity”. As her full name, Evangeline, implies, she is the books most powerful evangelist. She often discusses the topic of love and forgiveness with a mind full of cosmic love. Evas action fundamentally addresses the issue of spiritual salvation rather than earthly emancipation. The relationship of her with the suffering people is similar to that of Jesus with his lambs.Eva has a close relationship with Uncle Tom. On the one hand, they have something in common which makes them close