Monday, February 14, 2005
- DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA: THE PRIVATE AND THE PUBLIC
Lecturer: Eduard van de Bilt
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harvard Library Classics, 1853. Edited by Kenneth S. Lynne, 1962.
(Part I). Prof. van de Bilt led a very interesting debate on the book, with emphasis on chapter IX ("In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man".) Slowly but surely, he managed to turn our attention to the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, more than an anti-slavery manifesto, was in fact one of the first major pro-women accounts in Western literature.
When Ms. Bird asks her husband --the Senator-- about "a law forbidding people to give meat and drink to those poor colored folks that come along", the dialogue that ensues introduces the reader into a feminine world "ruled more by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument."
According to Prof. van de Bilt, the chapter is particularly interesting because it highlights the role played by women in what became the abolitionist movement. Initially, Mrs. Bird is seen as acting within the limited private world of her own:
The light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet of a cosey parlor, and glittered on the sides of the tea-cups and well-brightened tea-pot, as Senator Bird was drawing off his boots, preparatory to inserting his feet in a pair of new handsome slippers, which his wife had been working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird, looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the arrangements of the table... Mr. Bird: "... a cup of your good hot tea, and some of our good home living, is what I want."
When she switches to politics, she unwittinlgy enters the public sphere. "Now, John" --says she-- "I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow." Here, Mrs. Bird, in her very simple language, is making the crucial distinction between law and legislation.
A piece of legislation that contradicts the principles of Christianity in such a glaring way cannot be obeyed as law. And she is immediately proven right, as she and her husband take action to shelter a poor fugitive woman with her child. In Oncle Tom's Cabin, says Prof. van de Bilt, all major female characters (except Mrs. St Clare) are heroes.
Women should not remain in the private sphere. They have the power to create inter-personal bonds; they have emphaty, the ability to make people see that they are really equal (Prof. van de Bilt added that president Clinton possessed this ability in abundance.)
Prof. van de Bilt's conclusion: why not develop, why not institutionalize emphaty in order to create a more just social order? After all, good examples and an attitude of benevolence can be the engines of change. Women, it would appear, do everything better than men -- including managing financial affairs, as the example of Mrs. Shelby shows.
I thought this last point was a bit far-fetched. There is something that only men can do. Only men can wage war. And war, in my opinion, is the only realistic way to put an end to slavery. This is one of the paradoxes of Uncle Tom's Cabin. While Harriet Beecher Stowe appears to favor a non-violent solution, we all know what happened in the end. War on a massive scale was the remedy.
Lecturer: Eduard van de Bilt
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harvard Library Classics, 1853. Edited by Kenneth S. Lynne, 1962.
(Part I). Prof. van de Bilt led a very interesting debate on the book, with emphasis on chapter IX ("In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man".) Slowly but surely, he managed to turn our attention to the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, more than an anti-slavery manifesto, was in fact one of the first major pro-women accounts in Western literature.
When Ms. Bird asks her husband --the Senator-- about "a law forbidding people to give meat and drink to those poor colored folks that come along", the dialogue that ensues introduces the reader into a feminine world "ruled more by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument."
According to Prof. van de Bilt, the chapter is particularly interesting because it highlights the role played by women in what became the abolitionist movement. Initially, Mrs. Bird is seen as acting within the limited private world of her own:
The light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet of a cosey parlor, and glittered on the sides of the tea-cups and well-brightened tea-pot, as Senator Bird was drawing off his boots, preparatory to inserting his feet in a pair of new handsome slippers, which his wife had been working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird, looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the arrangements of the table... Mr. Bird: "... a cup of your good hot tea, and some of our good home living, is what I want."
When she switches to politics, she unwittinlgy enters the public sphere. "Now, John" --says she-- "I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow." Here, Mrs. Bird, in her very simple language, is making the crucial distinction between law and legislation.
A piece of legislation that contradicts the principles of Christianity in such a glaring way cannot be obeyed as law. And she is immediately proven right, as she and her husband take action to shelter a poor fugitive woman with her child. In Oncle Tom's Cabin, says Prof. van de Bilt, all major female characters (except Mrs. St Clare) are heroes.
Women should not remain in the private sphere. They have the power to create inter-personal bonds; they have emphaty, the ability to make people see that they are really equal (Prof. van de Bilt added that president Clinton possessed this ability in abundance.)
Prof. van de Bilt's conclusion: why not develop, why not institutionalize emphaty in order to create a more just social order? After all, good examples and an attitude of benevolence can be the engines of change. Women, it would appear, do everything better than men -- including managing financial affairs, as the example of Mrs. Shelby shows.
I thought this last point was a bit far-fetched. There is something that only men can do. Only men can wage war. And war, in my opinion, is the only realistic way to put an end to slavery. This is one of the paradoxes of Uncle Tom's Cabin. While Harriet Beecher Stowe appears to favor a non-violent solution, we all know what happened in the end. War on a massive scale was the remedy.
# posted by Agustin @ 10:17 PM 
