IG-15 A REBEL AGAINST THE SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION IN STOWE’S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN:

A REBEL AGAINST THE SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION
IN STOWE’S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN:
A GENETIC STRUCTLIRALISM APPROACH

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A.      Background of the Study

One of the historical backgrounds in creating a novel at the romanticism is the industrial revolution transformed the North East and combined with a reform epoch to set the North and the South against each other on the issue of slavery (Crawford, Kern & Needleman, 1966: 48). At that time, the North and the South differed in many ways. As time passes, the two sections developed different methods of agricultural production and different ways of life. After 1812 the North became increasingly interested in manufacturing and commerce while the South in agriculture and concentrates more and more on one crop, Cotton. After 1824, the people of the two sections found it increasingly hard to understand one another's point of view (Moon & Cline, 1950: 406-407).

The different ways of living make the people in the South and the North often disagree with important questions such as plantation system, slavery, the tariff and foreign trade. The debate often becomes heated when questions like these are up in Congress. The disagreement about slavery sharply split the North and the South in 1850's.

Slavery is important for the South as an agricultural area in the Cotton Belt. Planters feel they need slaves to work in their fields to fulfill the demand of cotton that increase rapidly. They believe that only the slaves could do this job because they are suitable to the hot climate. Thus, it makes the white people in the South profit from slavery and makes to preserve it. Considering the growing of cotton, the southerners feel sure that their ways of life could not survive in the same nation with the trading and manufacturing states of the North as well. On the other hand, it's not fair for the slaves because the slave traders generally treat them cruelly and even the southern slaveholders despise them (Moon & Cline, 1950:408).

Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of the romanticism American authors who writes a novel, inspired by the environment. She was bom in Litchfield, Comn, on June 14, 1811. She was a humanitarian; thus, her novels concern about with the problem of human beings. Stowe's works are mostly produced when she is alive. The works are novels, short stories and sketches, and travel sketches. The novels are Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852; Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, 1856; The Minister's Wooing, 1859; The Pearl of Orr's Island, 1862; Agnes of Sorrento, 1862; Oldtown Folks, 1869; Pink and White Tyranny, 1871; Mr Wife and 1, 1871; We and Our Neighbors, 1875; and Poganuc People, 1878.

One of Stowe's novels that is sensational when published is Uncle Tom's Cabin and it is also her first novel which is published during the period of slavery. Thus, within a year of its publication on March 20, 1852, 305.000 copies had been sold in America. Another 2.500.000 copies in English and its translation are circulated throughout the world (Wilson, 1962: 3). It's also said by Van Wyck Brooks in The Flowering of New England 1815-18.5G, that the sales of Uncle Tom's Cabin were enormous; the resulting fame of the author as great in England as America, and widespread over the continent (Brooks, 1936: 420). In addition, Longfellow said in his journal on February 24, 1853; "How she is shaking the world with her Uncle Tom's Cabin! At one step, she has reached the top of the stair - case up which the rest of us climb on our knees year after year (Hubbell, 1954: 389). That proves that Stowe whom a moderate abolitionist throughout her novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", is able to charm the world.

Stowe herself was not Abolitionist until she read Weld's book, American Slavery as it is "Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses", published by the American Antislavery Society in 1839. Then, she told Weld's wife, the former Angelina Grimke's of Charleston, that she kept this book in her work basket by day and slept with it under her pillow by night till its facts crystallized into Uncle Tom's Cabin (Hubbell, 1954: 387). Besides, she didn't agree with the enactment into law of the Fugitive Slave Bill in 1850 obligating nonsoutherners to return fleeing slaves to the South, by doing so, she resolved to attack the problem with her pen (Rowe, 1978: 3). Furthermore, she lived long enough in nearby Kentucky by seeing the injustice of fugitive slaves. Let alone, when her sixth child died of cholera in 1849, she finally felt and understood the lot of the Negro mother who was separated from her child, and she vowed to do some special service in the Negro's behalf. That is why, 1852, she published Uncle Tom's Cabin, an antislavery novel that focused on the injustice of slaves at that time.

No other American writer has been so popular and yet so controversial; reactions to her as both woman and writer have ranged from adulation to detestation. The most important of the Stowe controversies, of course, was that generated by Uncle Tom's Cabin, because it made criticism to her. The Southern reaction was also spectacular. In the three years following the appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin, least fourteen proslavery novels were published as well as numerous pamphlets, articles, and poems (Rowe, 1978:3). "It was still possible," Edmund Wilson says, "at the beginning of this century for a South Carolina teacher to make his pupils hold up their right hands and swear that they would never read Uncle Tom (Rowe, 1978: 4). Then, ten years later Abraham Lincoln was to greet its author with: "so this is the little lady who made the big war!" (Cramer, Sproat & Curry, 1972: 214). By seeing that, Uncle Tom's Cabin, however, is an interesting and exciting novel to make this whole nation feel what accursed thing slavery is.

The condition of social life in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is primarily the focus of the story, how the condition of life is in South America at that time. That's why, in analyzing this study, the writer chooses A Genetic Structuralism Approach to find out the answer of this study. As we know, Genetic Structuralism sets out from the hypothesis that all human behavior is an attempt to give a meaningful response to a particular situation and tends, therefore, to create a balance between the subject of action and the object on which it bears, the environment (Goldmann, 1975: 156).

Based the above phenomena, the present writer chooses "A REBEL AGAINST THE SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION IN STOWE'S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: A GENETIC STRUCTURALISM APPROACH as the title of this thesis. The writer believes that behind the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin there is a certain event and it makes the author write the story.

B.      Problem Statement

Based on the background of the study, the problem in this novel is: What is Stowe's worldview in Uncle Tom's Cabin?

C.      Objective of the Study

The objective of the study is:

1.       to analyze the novel based on its structural elements;

2.       to analyze the novel based on the sociological perspective.

D.      Limitation of the Study

In this study, the writer is necessary to limit the study as follows:

1.       Analyzing only the structural elements of Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin such as theme, character, plot and setting.

2.       This study concerns with Stowe's rebel against social discrimination as reflected in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

E.       Benefit of the Study

The Benefits of the study are

1.       to make the readers and the writers have more knowledge about novel and the elements that included there;

2.       to give information for the other observer in analyzing this novel from different perspective.

F.       Literature Review

The writer found several books focusing on Stowe's most famous novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The books are The Feminization of America Culture, written by Ann. Douglas and published in New York. Douglas said, "it is sentimental novel that is written by, about, and for women" (Douglas, 1977: 81). Besides, Critical Essays on Harriet Beecher Stowe edited by Elizabeth Ammons, which conveniently illustrates the ebb and flow of Stowe's criticism from the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Furthermore, one of books that most judicious is The Building of Uncle Tom's Cabin written by Edwin Bruce Kirkham and published in Boston. In The Life Work of the Author of uncle Tom's Cabin, edited by Florine T. Mc Cray, Mc Cray wrote this unauthorized biography while Stowe was still alive. Mc. Cray praises her novels at length (Mc Cray, 1889: 440). The latest but not the last, Maizufri, one of the student in UGM, writes a thesis with the title Slavety in Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN ONE OF THE CAUSES OF THE A1fERICAN CIVIL 6VAR 1861 - 1865 at 1991. He attempts to prove that Stowe's throughout her novel is one of the causes of the American Civil War 1861 - 1865, nevertheless, the central purpose of Stowe in creating the novel is not like that. She intends to abolish slavery and social discrimination between the black and the white but the southern as the central of slavery becomes angry. Then, they do not like the publishing of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Therefore, the conflict between the south and the north breaks again.

G.      Research Methodology

This study uses qualitative method.

1.       The Object of the Study

The object of the study is Uncle Tom's Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and publicized by Harper & Row in New York at 1852.

2.       The Technique of Data Collection

The data collection is done through documentation or library research, namely the other books supporting the object of the study. Procedure:

1.       Reading the written novel repeatedly and underlying the important data, which the sentences, the phrases, and the words

2.       Writing down the important data interesting to the writer.

3.       Arranging the data into several parts based on its classification.

4.       Developing the data provided

3.       The Technique of Data Analysis

The technique of data analysis used in this study is a descriptive analysis and content analysis.

H.      Research Paper Organization

This study is organized into six chapters, in the chapter one including the background of the study, the problem statement, the objective of the study, the limitation of the study, the benefit of the study, the literature review, the research methodology, and the thesis organization. Chapter two discusses the underlying theory used in interpreting this study that is Genetic Structuralism. In chapter three is about the social background of the American Society in the mid-nineteenth century and discussion structural analysis will be put on chapter four. Furthermore, discussing sociological analysis will be put on chapter five. In the last chapter, presenting conclusion and suggestion will close this study.

REFERENCES

Ammons, Elizabeth, 1990, critical  Essays on Harriet Beecher Stowe, Boston: G. K. hall.

Barnett, Sylvian, ET all, 1961, An Introduction to literature, Canada: Little Brown and Company.

Beacham, Walton, 1985, Research Guide to Biography and Criticism - Vol. 11, USA: Research Publishing.

Brooks, Van Wyck, 1936, The Flowering of New England 1815 - 1865.

Bums, Elizabeth & Tom Bums (eds.), 1973, Sociology of Literature and Drama, Middles: Penguin Books.

Crawford, Barholow V., Alexander C. Kern & Momiss H. Needleman, 1966, American Literature: A Complete History, With Biographical, Data, literature Trends, and Criticism, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Cramer, Kenyon C., John G. Sproat, & Richard O. Curry, 1972, The shaping of America, USA: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc.

Culler, Jonathan, 1983, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Darmana, Sapardi Djoko, 1978, Sosiologi Sastra: Sebuah Pengantar Ringkas, Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Kebudayaan.

Douglas, Ann., 1977, The Feminazation of American Culture, New York: Knopf. Encyclopedia Americana, 1978, Vol. 2, USA: Americana Corporation.

Faruk, 1994, Penguntur Sociology sastra , Pustaka Pelajar.

Goldman, Lucian, 1975, Towards Sociology of the Novel, Great Britain: Tavistock Publication Limited.

Goldman, Lucien, 1981, Method in Sociology of literature , Translated from the  French and Edited by William Q Bochhower. Oxford: Basic Blackwell.

Hubbell, Jay B., 1954, "l he South in American  literature 1607 - 1900, USA: Duke Universitv Press.

Kennedy, X. J., 1976, An Introduction to Fiction, USA: Little, Brown and

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