blog 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin

In Eliza’s escape from leaving the Shelby’s and finding her way to the Bird’s home there is a lot of female virtue dominating this text. Both women of these households don’t have power outside their home but they still influence the men of the household and assert their beliefs against their husband’s viewpoints that society has caused them to have. The women use their morality to get their husbands in aiding Eliza to a safe place. They use their religion to persuade their husbands in doing what they want to do, in doing what is right.

            Going into reading this section I knew women back in these days were the moral ones and had the Christian virtues within the household. I didn’t expect these women to use these and have the outcome that they did. The men are the controlling ones yet these women found it in their husband’s hearts and sort of guilted them into doing the right thing. Mr. Bird’s conversation with Mrs. Bird before Eliza comes is contradictory to his actions after she comes into their lives. When reading this part of the novel, the text almost gives it away that Eliza was coming to the Senators house.  After I read the conversation, I questioned what would his actions be when she arrived to their house. One of my answers I came up with was that maybe he would turn her in and she would have to escape again. But as I continued reading I found it very compelling how Eliza’s story and Mrs. Bird made Mr. Bird have a change in heart. I did not think these women would take such a man and his opinions and make him do something contradictory to what his opinions were.

            In this text it says, “ our senator had the misfortune to be a man who had a particularly humane and accessible nature, and turning away anybody that was in trouble never had been his forte; and what was worse for him in this particular pinch of the argument was, that his wife knew it, and of course, was making an assault on rather an indefensible point” (p. 73). This character description this quote gives is very contradictory to what he tries to be. I think deep down he knows passing that law is not right and he knows that his wife is right in her beliefs.

Because his wife knows him and his heart deep down she knows how to use that to her advantage. It says, “ she was making an assault on a rather indefensible point”. I don’t think that she’s doing this for female independence but because of her faith and religion is compelling her to do so. It is Christian value to do the right thing.  She uses her religion and role as a woman to do the right thing and get her husband to essentially break the law that he voted for, which is ironic.

            The author experiences in being a woman and having helped slaves escape shape the text. It seems she made these two women in the book, Mrs. Shelby and Mrs. Bird, do things that she did in real life. Giving her women characters such bravery and courage, I could see it inspiring other women the same courage to help run away slaves and to use the little power that they did have in their household to encourage their husbands to do the right thing as well. Her female characters in this book also could have given the slaves the courage to do what Eliza has done in her escape. I think Eliza’s escape is the most memorable part of the book for me so far not only because of Eliza’s motherly instinct and courage but also because of the female virtue or ‘power’ dominating this text as well.