The Little Cabin of Auntie Harriet: Echoes of Conservatism in Uncle Tom’s Cabin for Children
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This essay reads the two children’s editions that were published in 1853: Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Peep into Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe’s original version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was often seen as a book for children. And yet, Stowe is speculated to have approved of the publication of these two children’s versions, which essentially obscures her emphasis on the issue of abolitionism. What remains in these revised books for children is a highly sentimentalized and evangelicalized tale. Thus I aim to examine the “shoddy reproductions” of Stowe’s monumental text against the backdrop of 19th century children’s literature which emerged as the result of a nationalist enterprise to transmit to the younger generation “the true, the beautiful, the good, the facts of life and the shining image of America”. Historically speaking, the two children’s editions testify to the Uncle Tom-mania that gripped the imagination of 19th century America. Yet, by proposing that young readers should be allowed just a “peep” into perhaps only the “pictures and stories” excerpted from the original, these works seem to suggest that there was something inherently dangerous about Uncle Tom from which children must be shielded. This essay delineates how the two children’s editions dilute the abolitionist rhetoric of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and in its stead, propagandize the ideology of conservatism which resonates the cultural nationalist tenor of 19th century American children’s literature. I posit that ultimately, the two children’s editions, adhering to the “national project of raising good, white, middle-class Christian American children”, do not simply moderate but countervail the antislavery message of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Abstract
This essay reads the two children’s editions that were published in 1853: Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Peep into Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe’s original version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was often seen as a book for children. And yet, Stowe is speculated to have approved of the publication of these two children’s versions, which essentially obscures her emphasis on the issue of abolitionism. What remains in these revised books for children is a highly sentimentalized and evangelicalized tale. Thus I aim to examine the “shoddy reproductions” of Stowe’s monumental text against the backdrop of 19th century children’s literature which emerged as the result of a nationalist enterprise to transmit to the younger generation “the true, the beautiful, the good, the facts of life and the shining image of America”. Historically speaking, the two children’s editions testify to the Uncle Tom-mania that gripped the imagination of 19th century America. Yet, by proposing that young readers should be allowed just a “peep” into perhaps only the “pictures and stories” excerpted from the original, these works seem to suggest that there was something inherently dangerous about Uncle Tom from which children must be shielded. This essay delineates how the two children’s editions dilute the abolitionist rhetoric of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and in its stead, propagandize the ideology of conservatism which resonates the cultural nationalist tenor of 19th century American children’s literature. I posit that ultimately, the two children’s editions, adhering to the “national project of raising good, white, middle-class Christian American children”, do not simply moderate but countervail the antislavery message of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
참고문헌 (25)
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