CLASS 1

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Souvenir Handkerchief

Rialton uses the souvenir handkerchief from 1952 to emphasize which of his arguments about Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

A. To highlight how Stowe’s construction of “blackness” is dependent upon the the novel’s covert gender politics.

B. To underscore how Stowe excludes women from the way she defines the problem of slavery.

C. To echo how the text itself fails to connect the cost of the domestic elegance described in the novel with the economics of slavery.

D. To illustrate Stowe’s view that the social sin of slavery lies in realms that are identified as male: institutional religion, politics, business, law, etc.

Gender Rules

Masculine and feminine sphereDenounce male social institutions / Sacralize

domestic space and women’s roleNot feministEconomic naivete?

Representing the Other

Racism or RacialismThe OtherExotic to DomesticDomesticated or Emasculated

Identify the Speaker

“My master! And who made him my master? That’s what I think of—what right has he to me? I am a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better hand, and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him, I’ve learned it in site of him…

A.Uncle TomB.George HarrisC.Black SamD.George Shelby

George and Tom

White and black slavesLight Skin / Dark SkinDeclaration / BibleMinstrel (Harry) / Frederick Douglass

Identify the Speaker

“This is God’s curse on slavery! – a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing! –a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil…

A.Eliza HarrisB.Aunt ChloeC.Emily ShelbyD.Arthur Shelby

Signifyin

Black SamAndy???

Survey

Do you believe that Arthur Shelby has no choice but to sell Tom and Harry?

A.YesB.No