Getting in the Kitchen with Dinah
Domestic Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2732952 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gillian Brown (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1984 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 503 |
| Publication date | 1984-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0678 • E-ISSN: 1080-6490 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2712748 |
| OpenAlex | W2326182296 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
MORE NOTORIOUS AND UNDENIABLE THAN ANY OTHER ABUSE OF THE system of slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe believed, was its outrage upon family.' Nowhere in Uncle Tom's Cabin is this domestic violation so marked as in careless condition of Southern kitchen. Dinah's kitchen in Little Eva St. Clare's New Orleans home looked as if it been arranged by a hurricane blowing through it.2 In Dinah's domestic arrangements, the rolling pin is under bed and nutmeg grater in her pocket with her tobacco-there are sixty-five different sugar bowls, one in every hole in house (I, 304); she had about as many places for each cooking utensil as there were days in year (I, 297). This promiscuous housekeeping scandalizes St. Clares' Northern cousin Ophelia, offending her domestic propriety as much as slavery disturbs her moral sense. Ophelia finds that Southerners not only neglect their awful responsibility for souls of their slaves but also let their households operate without any sort of calculation to time and place (I, 255, 297). In Ophelia's New England home the old kitchen floor never seems stained or spotted; tables, chairs, and various cooking utensils never seem deranged or disordered (I, 227). There, everything is once and forever rigidly in place (I, 226). In a vain attempt to remodel Dinah's kitchen in New England style, Augustine St. Clare once installed an array of cupboards, drawers, and various apparatus, to induce systematic regulation (I, 298). Yet after discovering
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Cousin · Literature · Outrage · Political science · Politics · Style (visual arts · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,19 |
| Citation span | 1990 - 2024 (35) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |