White Supremacy In Uncle Tom's Cabin

Deconstruction of the Theory of White Supremacy in Uncle Tom's Cabin

In the novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe unmasks the unjust and unfair treatment of blacks by whites during the time in which she lived. Stowe goes on to criticize American slave owners for their irrational justifications of slavery. They use racial superiority and sub-human categorization of blacks as means of justifying slavery. She deconstructs the theory of white supremacy in her emotional and thought provoking novel. Stowe demonstrates in her depiction of the beating of the slaves how they are inhumanely treated as animals. She also uses many slave and master relationships in order to demonstrate society’s belief of racial superiority. Under

Stowe demonstrates how slaves are thought to be sub-human and pet-like by comparing them to dogs. Early in the first chapter of the novel, the author introduces us to the racial ideology of Mr. Haley. He is talking about taking a child away from his or her mother when he says “these critters an’t like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right”(Stowe 5). Haley does not believe that a black woman can care as much about her child as a white woman. Stowe interjects her criticism of this racial prejudice and goes on to point out that Haley and Mr. Shelby consider themselves humanitarians. In actuality, both could be nothing further than the truth. Stowe illustrates that some owners thought that there was a “humane” way of slavery. The reader is shown that it is irrational to think that enslavement of another human being is not justifiable at all. After he compares slaves to critters, he then compares them to pups. In the novel, he goes on to say that “they is raised as easy as any kind of critters there is going; they an’t a bit more trouble than pups”(Stowe 125). The fact that they are compared to critters and pups illustrates the shallow and prejudice mentality of slave owners. It is cruel and inhumane that they can remotely consider black human beings to be

Through Tom Stowe is able to show society that blacks are equal and that they should be treated with the same rights that all other humans are treated. The attitudes of racial inequality permeated from society directly into the novel reemphasizing Stowe’s critique of white supremacy. Slave owners justify this cruel institution by categorizing blacks as sub-human and believing that they are racially superior. Stowe urges Southerners to look with in themselves and see if what they are doing is right. She asks them “have you not, in your own secret souls … felt that there were woes and evils in this accursed system?”(440). This novel is intended to inform the readers about the tragedies of slavery and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery. Stowe deconstructs the theory of white supremacy by analyzing the sub-human categorization of blacks and the belief of racial superiority. She writes an emotional and accurate depiction of “God’s curse on slavery!-a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing! -a curse to the master and a curse to the slave!”(33). Nothing good can come out of such a “deadly evil” in which one asserts power over the other in order to maintain racial