Feminist Rhetoric in Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe :: Feminism Feminist Women Criticism

Feminist Rhetoric in Uncle Toms confine In considering whether Harriet Beecher Stowes book, Uncle Toms Cabin, is an lesson of, or contains remnants of, feminist rhetoric or non, one must primary solve the problem of defining what is meant by the term feminist. This is difficult to do when one considers that Uncle Toms Cabin was written over one hundred and twoscore years ago, and that feminism has moved through so many divers(prenominal) stages since that time. One must resist applying the standards of twentieth-century feminism to Stowes time, and instead, try to view Uncle Toms Cabin as it would have been viewed given the sentiment of the time. In order to do this, one must early define feminism within the historical context of the 1850s, when Uncle Toms Cabin was published. Perhaps the term feminist itself was not normally associated with womens rights in the 1850s, exclusively certainly the ideal was. The climate of the time in which Stowe published her anti-slavery novel was fruitful with unrest, not only because of the slavery issue, but also because of womens rights issues. The focus of the womens rights movement, led by women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Stanton, was not only womens attainment of the vote, but also the emergence of women as world citizens, a role that went beyond that of ruler of the domestic, private sector. Womens suffrage was first proposed in the United States in 1848 at the first womens rights convention in Seneca Falls, just two years before Uncle Toms Cabin was published. At this convention, a Declaration of Sentiments that paralleled the wording of the Declaration of Independence was drafted, insisting on the betrothal of a womens suffrage resolution. The Womens Rights movement of this time also advocated more spacious divorce laws, less restrictive clothing for women, coeducation, and the right of married women to hold their property. Though it would be seventy years before women woul d be minded(p) the right to vote by the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the Womens Rights movement was in military position and active during the time that Stowe wrote Uncle Toms Cabin. Even so, Uncle Toms Cabin is seemingly about slavery, not womens rights, and it is not erroneous to assume that Stowes intention was to highlight the evils of slavery and the rotting of human morality, rather than directly discuss womens roles when she penned the novel.