The book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by H. B. Stowe vividly portrays different gender roles and superiority of men over women. The passage selected for analysis reveals that men dominated in society and obtained a leading role in lives of women. The passage relates to George Harris, Eliza’s husband. In the passage Stowe shows the moral and intellectual superiority of men over women. Harris, the husband of Eliza and brother of Cissie, had seen his mother put up at a sheriff’s sale with her seven children.
He is sent by his owner to work in a bagging factory, where he invents a machine for the cleaning of hemp. George Harris “talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing machines and holding up his head among gentlemen? He’d soon put a stop to it.”
But George Harris refuses to go back to the field. While on a visit to Eliza’s residence (they were kept apart by separate masters), he divulges his plan of escape and asks what justice made him a slave and the white, his master: “I’m a better man than he is, I know more about the business than he does, I am a better manager than he is, I can read better than he can, I write a better hand–and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him.” (Stowe, Chapter 3) Through the character of George Harris, Mrs. Stowe interjected her colonization views. Too ambitious to remain an artisan, Harris enrolls in a French university where he spends four years in study. But in the closing pages of the novel, he departs with his family for Liberia, where a new and promising republic has arisen:
The stereotype of a black man depicted in the selected passage can be compared to Michael Stivic from All in the Family. He dominates in the family and over women. In contrast to this character, women characters are portrayed as weak and helpless. The immediate source of their confidence was the great strides man had lately taken toward fulfilling his oldest dream, the conquest of his physical environment.
The character of Michael Stivic stays apart from other make characters: he is depicted as a man who possessed female qualities such passion, sympathy and deep feelings. Social priorities were supported by economic development which always played a major role considered as the main indicator of future success or failure. It is possible to say that slavery lasted so long, because it was legitimatized by the church which played a crucial role for 20 century men.
In sum, both works show that men dominate in society and are portrayed as strong and powerful in contrast to weak women. Men are portrayed as indifferent and cruel towards women. Stowe idealizes womanhood avoiding such things as oppression and low educational level, low social status of women and their domestic role only. She tries to create a woman who is equal to men in her thoughts if not actions. Such behavior considered typical for this epoch.
Stowe also depicts that women’s life and destiny defined and depended upon the men, and, particularly, upon their marriage. Although men had an influence on women’s behavior and exaggerated them in many life situations. Many women characters in the novel wonder why anyone would understand a difference between slaves and masters, blacks and whites.
Works Cited
Stowe, H. B. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 2003. Web.