Uncle Tom's Protest Novel, By Harriet Baldwin

There can be many different goals of a work of protest literature. Protest literature can contain many different definitions, meanings, and inflict different responses to their audiences. Whether attempting to inform, influence, inspire, or just affect the audiences’ emotion, the author has a goal that he/she is trying to achieve. This is done in either fiction or non-fiction protest novels. Sometimes however, people tend to draw different opinions from the intended goal, which leads to controversy and argument. In “Everybody’s Protest Novel”, Baldwin’s argument is focused on fiction protest novels. He discredits fiction protest novels in efforts to motivate and change people, but rather they are only good in informing people. He attacks Harriet
He makes this known by saying “Sentimentality the…parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty.” His support of this is in his explanation of the character of Uncle Tom, in Stowe’s novel. As he suggests, making Tom a sympathetic character who never retaliates but rather accepts everything, blinds the people of the truth about slavery. That is not what happened in real life. It’s the “mask of cruelty,” as Baldwin states, hiding the truth from the readers. This however is what led to the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, not failure which Baldwin attempts to argue. Baldwin was too focused on the idea that in order for a protest novel to be successful it has to be real. The problem with that is that readers of the time were already witnesses to what was really happening, it was their everyday lives, it was their reality. With the idea of writing about factual events giving the character credibility, which Tom lacked, it may disgust the readers and in turn deter them from reading the book. That would not do any good for the struggle of slavery. Instead, easing them into the struggle, giving a relation and friendship with the character of Tom wants them to continue reading to see what happens to their friend. That is why Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and any other sentimental fiction novel can be successful. Evidence of the success resides in Lincoln’s quote of “so
With the narrator being constantly dominated by her husband John, she is lead into depression which seems to have an influence on her insanity, hallucinations, and obsessions. This is a tactic Gilman uses to represent the oppression of women during the time. It is suggested that her husband is the one that drove her insane because he never lets her express her feelings like she used to, even controlling the little things in her life. She is “absolutely forbidden to work until [she] is well again.” This leads to sympathy for the women, showing that she is helpless in her life. He husband is also her physician so she is constantly under his control, which leads her in into her own imagination hallucinations because she actually has some control over them. After she realizes she is the only one that can see the pattern on the wall paper she says “life is very much more exciting now.” Different that her previous thoughts of always thinking “John says”, she is free from his control which bring her enjoyment. The audience grows a relationship with the narrator, feeling the oppression that she feels from her husband, and being trapped. Gilman’s goal was the idea of “consciousness-raising,” which was a tactic of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960’s. The idea was inform women that the experiences that they are facing are