Essay on Modern Criticism of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Through Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe communicates to readers that slavery is morally corrupt, by showing the wrong in slave owner's actions, the struggles and heartaches slaves were put through, and how faith and religion ultimately contradicted all that slavery encompassed.

On a superficial level, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a fictitious, narrative about slavery. Yet, the truth is that the novel is filled with propaganda. A narrator, Stowe, breaks the third wall to directly address the issues of slavery with the reader. The novel ends with revelatory remarks that there can be no possible justification for owning slaves, and beyond the condemnation, action needs to be taken to end the horrible enterprise. Beyond direct statement through the narrator and characters, the characters themselves hold a type of persuasions in their actions and thoughts. This novel is more than just a casual read. There can be no mistake, the novel is a form of propaganda with the ultimate goal of influencing its readers

The anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe was written at a time when slavery was a largely common practice among Americans. It not only helped lay the foundation for the Civil War but also contained many themes that publicized the evil of slavery to all people. The book contains themes such as the moral power of women, human right, and many more. The most important theme Stowe attempts to portray to readers is the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. She makes it very clear that she does not believe slavery and Christianity can coexist and that slavery is against all Christian morals. She believes no Christian should allow the existence or practice of slavery.

Stowe’s novel however was intended on having a cultural impact on its readers, the novel has direct references to the Fugitive Slave Act, abolition movement and its influence on the shift in racial politics. Uncle Tom’s cabin reinforces racial thinking upon its readers and reflects Stowe’s colonialist viewpoints.

In the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author conveys the evils and immoralities regarding slavery by portraying multiple accounts of abuse from slaveowners toward their slaves, humanizing the slaves, and ultimately slaves reaching out to christianity when they are hopeless.

    In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” christianity and faith are an important themes. Stowe was a committed christian woman. Her book

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative of his Life both endeavor to stir antislavery sentiment in predominantly white, proslavery readers. Each author uses a variety of literary tactics to persuade audiences that slavery is inhumane. Equiano uses vivid imagery and inserts personal experience to appeal to audiences, believing that a first-hand account of the varying traumas slaves encounter would affect change. Stowe relies on emotional connection between the readers and characters in her novel. By forcing her audience to have empathy for characters, thus forcing readers to confront the harsh realities of slavery, Stowe has the more effective approach to encouraging abolitionist sentiment in white readers.

Since Christianity rests on the principle of universal love, no Christian should tolerate slavery. If all people were to put the principle into practice it would be impossible for the oppression and enslavement of one section of humanity. Throughout the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe has illustrated the fact that the system of slavery and principles of Christianity oppose each other. The novel exposes the evils of slavery—its incompatibility with Christian principles—and points the way to its transformation through Christian love through the characterization of some characters in the novel. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Christian principles of forgiveness, compassion, and belief in an afterlife is embodied though the character

Stowe presents slavery in the only way she knows how, by using the facts. Several sources of other works in American literature contrast on to how Stowe presents slavery in her novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The elements of slavery are driven through the reflections of theme, characterization, and setting to show that the way slavery is presented is not contradicting.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was by no means a factual book. In fact, most, if not all of the events were completely made up. How then can a completely fictional book change the lives of so many? It comes from the power of Stowe’s rhetoric in conjunction with her target audience. Stowe was a white Christian female. She believed slavery was completely wrong and wanted to make a change. But how could she? She was a woman after all and during that time period women simply did not effect change through politics. According to Susan Harris, a respected Stowe researcher, “The men are not evil, but they are involved in the public world” (Harris). However influencing politics was the only way things were going to change and Stowe knew this. She henceforth targeted the white Christian mothers because they in turn could influence their men to make changes in the male dominant society of politics. A perfect method by which to achieve a change in slavery laws indirectly. Stowe especially used the power of sentimentalism to connect with her audience. She did not need facts or evidence, all she needed to effect change in the hearts of the women was a general feel for the subject. The women of that day were very sensitive and yet very powerful in the home. Stowe capitalized on this by using the Christ figures of Tom and Eva and their experiences during the slavery era to evoke a feeling of compassion for them in her audience. By using more emotion and targeting the human aspect of

The production of Uncle Tom's Cabin was not only embracing slaves but also supporting antislavery politics. There was considerable overlap, to be sure, between the proslavery and sentimental abolitionist structures of feeling, for maternalist

     Published in the early 1850’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a huge impact on our nation and contributed to the tension over slavery. It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a woman who was involved in religious and feminist causes. Stowe’s influence on the northern states was remarkable. Her fictional novel about slave life of her current time has been thought to be one of the main things that led up to the Civil War. The purpose of writing it, as is often said, was to expose the evils of slavery to the North where many were unaware of just what went on in the rest of the country. The book was remarkably successful and sold 300,000 copies by the end of its first year. It is even rumored that

As many people say history was written by the victors, we need to remember there would be no victors without the struggle and turmoil of those that lost. This is what Harriet Beecher Stowe’s compelling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin has taught us in regards to the war on slavery. In the midst of the 1800’s, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to address the various issues regarding race during this century. Throughout her novel, readers learn the lives of slaves, slave masters, and their families, which leads to the understanding of a unique lifestyle among the characters. As her novel is important in today’s society, it made an even greater impact during the nineteenth century as it portrays the ideology of the Civil War and the abolitionists.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a novel written in times of unrest where slavery was a controversial topic and women 's rights were still suffering. Uncle Tom’s Cabin showed the grim reality of slavery and showed the importance for women to gain a societal role beyond the domestic domain. The reading contains a number of major characters throughout the novel. The two most notable characters we will discuss is Mrs. Shelby and Marie St. Clare. Throughout this paper we will compare and contrast these two characters and give specific examples to illustrate the similarities and differences between these two unique individuals.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is arguably the most influential novel in American History. Stowe’s sentimental writing style seized the imagination of her readers and Uncle Tom’s Cabin became the standard of the abolition movement. Uncle Tom, one of the protagonists, spreads Christianity and dies for his faith, like Christ. By equating Uncle Tom with Jesus Christ, Harriet Beecher Stowe deliberately provokes her audience to social change and abolition.