Harriet Beecher Stowe uses an appeal to class as much as basic humanity in her case for the abolition of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. While she includes many details of the horrific treatment of slaves, she also carefully (and frequently less subtly) highlights the socioeconomic status of her villains, positing them as vulgar parvenus. Beecher Stowe employs this strategy on the first page, when she describes the trader Haley:
He was much overdressed, in a gaudy vest of many colors, a blue neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged with a flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air of the man. His hands, large and coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings; and he wore a heavy gold watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous size, and a great variety of colors attached to it,–which, in the ardor of conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and easy defiance of Murray’s Grammar, and was garnished at convenient intervals with various profane expressions, which not even the desire to be graphic in our account shall induce us to transcribe.
From this description, the reader can gather that Haley does not come from an aristocratic background and has made his fortune himself, by being a cold-hearted slave trader as we later learn. Beecher Stowe uses the word “coarse” frequently throughout the novel, and always to describe slave-owners. Another example of this is on page 112, when Beecher Stowe is describing a man who opposes all of the people in the tavern protesting the flier about George. She describes him as a “coarse-looking fellow” and says that he has a “coarse, unconscious obtuseness.” By describing those backing slavery as “coarse” and ignorant, Beecher Stowe makes an appeal to the white, northern elitist reader based on grounds other than the blatant wrongness of slavery.
This is a really important insight. I definitely also noticed how much Stowe uses descriptions of appearance or other superficial characterizations to mark certain characters and communicate things about their identity. Haley is a bad guy in the story, so he is described as ugly and crude; Lizzy is a hero, so she is beautiful and graceful. While simplistic, these descriptions do serve well to communicate clearly to the reader the morals of the story.
Its interesting how Stowe uses manners and propriety to distinguish between villains and hero’s. This strategy lends itself well to appealing to contemporary readers, as members of society in the north would be drawn to the fact that the heroes who are enslaved are portrayed as being just as, if not more sophisticated as the white villains. She also uses pious characters such as Tom and Eliza, in contrast with the irreverent Haley to appeal to the religious majority.
I agree with you, and when you mentioned class, I immediately thought of the portrayal of Augustine St. Clare. St. Clare is a wealthy plantation owner, and he is described in very high class terms. Stowe describes him by saying “his talents were of the very first order, although his mind showed a preference always for the ideal and the aesthetic” (159). Despite being a slaveowner himself, St. Clare speaks about the ills of slavery. He describes it as “this cursed business, accursed of God and man… the thing itself is the essence of abuse” (230). The character of St. Clare is one that the reader would immediately respect, for his wealth and his intelligence, and I think Stowe intentionally uses him as a vehicle for her abolitionist beliefs, to make those beliefs seem more credible in the eyes of the reader.
That is such an interesting point about the strategies of appealing to white Northern elites. Throughout this book, I have also tried to notice the different ways that Stowe showcases abolitionist themes, and I think she does so much of it through characterization. It’s interesting to think that a Northerner would regard the passages about the brutality of slavery as less convincing because perhaps it is so similar to other narratives at the time that it gets lost as just a plot point. Instead, reading the slaveowners as “coarse” and all these other negative characteristics would catch their eye if only because they are offended or surprised at the accusation.