Session 10

The Novel as Democratic Form

Harriet Beecher-Stowe. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-2) shares some important thematic and formal elements with Moby-Dick (1851).  We will organize our discussion around these parallels and what the different treatments of these issues by Stowe and Melville suggest about literary representation.

Herman Melville. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Both works are encyclopedic, in that they both strive to represent enormous realms of experience and territory.  Melville’s story involves the tale of the Pequod and the journey of its doomed crew across the Pacific, but it also frequently references other major actors in American and world history.  Stowe’s novel moves between the affluent circles of powerful political families and the “lowly” existence of characters such as Uncle Tom and Eliza.  Here our development of the distinction between "the book" and "the novel" is relevant.  What do these works accomplish in striving to be both capacious in form and encompassing in theme?  How do such literary techniques inform our readings of class and social exchange in both authors’ visions of democracy in America?

Both works are heavily engaged with issues of race and cultural difference.  Identify how Melville and Stowe incorporate different (and often contentious) contemporary views and positions on these issues into their texts.  What particular aspects of race does each work tend to focus on?  How do the protagonists in each of these works negotiate the lines of difference between their respective communities? 

Both works centrally pursue religious themes: Melville’s book deploys the white whale as a multivalent symbol of divinity and evil, while in Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom and Eva serve as benevolent Christ figures that offset the satanic presence of the slaveholder Simon Legree.  Identify how Stowe’s novel uses the language of Christian community and the idea of the Christian home in particular.  How does this differ from Melville’s characterizations? 

Both reflect on U.S. politics and the consequences of slavery for the Union.  Identify how these works include and refigure different voices from debates on slavery.  How does Stowe in particular infuse certain character types with major lines of argument from both proslavery and abolitionist groups?  Specifically, how does Uncle Tom’s Cabin intervene in these arguments?  How does Jane Tompkins reconsider the importance of Stowe's novel and its investment in the power of sentiment to effect political and social change?  How does she approach the contribution of women novelists to American literature and how does this focus on gender and writing relate to the content of Uncle Tom's Cabin?

Finally, both Stowe and Melville interrogate concepts of "democracy."  Here consider the Sandra Gustafson reading on the meaning of democracy as it relates to the novel form.  Also consider the different meanings of democracy—the different varieties of political democracy; economic democracy; and socio-cultural democracy—as they pertain to these works.