Critical Commentary

For the reader response section of this project, I found it difficult to connect my particular theme with any of the three essays in the Critics section of UTC. Nevertheless, I have selected to work with the essay Who Gets to Create Lasting Images? The Problem of Black Representation in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Sophia Cantave. In this essay, Cantave focuses on if Stowe’s novel should be the one used in teaching the issues of slavery, or just as a note to it’s historical significance and use novel written by African Americans that have a more realistic view of slavery. Cantave acknowledges the historical significance of the novel, being the novel that sparked the debate on slavery or, to use her words “the proverbial ‘shot heard around the world’”, but questions whether we should not be using something more fitting as a teaching material. One her main points comes from page 585 where she explains that, though UTC “made slavery readable” and “gives white people and black people a way to read slavery together.” that more realistic novels exist that might not be as pretty persay, but a better first-hand account in a modern sense. One suggestion Cantave gives is to have UTC read side-by-side with Our Nig, by Harriet Wilson. She believes that Our Nig gives many ways to look at the issue of slavery and appealed more to blacks than whites. This would then give the audience a better sense of what the black community were feeling at this time. She also offers that, because Stowe did not write on the worst issues in slavery, the fact that she used a slave interactions a comic relief in parts of UTC, and that many slaves were not able to write on these monstrosities, that their is a lack of appropriate black voices in literature to properly frame slavery in an educational way. This essay strengthened my assumptions about UTC. I assumed that Stowe didn’t write on the extremes of slavery to appeal more to the white population at the time. However this makes sense, being that the white population were the ones who needed a novel such as this to change their long held views on slavery. I also have to agree with Cantave, in that, while the book was what was at the time, we should look to other novels along side UTC to further frame slavery in an educational standpoint.