The Cruelest Separation By Harriet Beacher Stowe Essay

Harriet Stowe’s writing style is very narrative and informal. Her famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is extremely personal and puts a direct storyline to slavery, which caused it to be very contentious. Those who supported slavery convicted Stowe’s work and said that it was just an overwrought story with an unrealistic model of what slavery was really like. Stowe became notorious all around the world after

Harriet Beecher Stowe became one of the most famous writers, reformers, and abolitionist women of the 1800's in large part due to her most effective selling fictional book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The image of brutal whippings, rape, and the splitting of families broke down the hearts of people in the eighteenth century. Her writing influenced thousands to become a great phenomenon, take a stand, and change the world. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived much of her life near slaves and did not believe in the practice of slavery; this inspired her to become a voice for anti-slavery both in her writings and personal values and beliefs.

There are two types of relationships present within the familial sphere: paternal and maternal. In Harriet Beacher-Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, we see paternal relationships negatively and maternal relationships positively. Sentimental novels focus on women: how they take up space in their homes, in society, and in relationships, as well as how they function in their roles as wives and mothers. Uncle Tom’s Cabin specifically draws on motherhood and maternalism to explore those relationships to slavery and abolitionism. The novel demonstrates that slavery, as a paternal institution, has roots in abolitionism through a base of women acting as maternal figures. In other words, women will catalyze the movement to end slavery, because an understanding of human connection and affection, only accessible through motherhood, are necessary in the eradication of this inherently male practice.

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published a book that many individuals believed had a large impact on the start of the civil war. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was just one of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s many books; from children’s books to other novels, she wrote and published over thirty pieces of writing. The author’s intent for writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to reach out to those in the North and inform them of the hardships and true agony of the life of a slave. The author communicates this through the heartbreaking story of the relationships between the slaveholders and slaves, and by giving the slave characters a storyline and getting the reader attached to those certain characters.

Harriett Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin revolves around the lives of several Negro slaves and the struggles they face. The novel, told in a third person point of view is an incredibly well composed novel with a well-rounded; sympathetical feel. Stowe amazingly starts the novel with an abrupt scene where two slave owners are in the process of making a transaction; later in the novel you realize that that very moment was the beginning of what would bring Eliza much misery. In that very scene, Mr. Shelby makes a deal with Mr. Haley to sell Harry (Eliza’s son) and Uncle Tom. Although Mr. Shelby loves and respects his slaves he is forced into an inhumane deal because of his financial debt to Mr. Haley. The novel runs through the lives of several slaves a little boy Harry, his mother, Eliza, his father, George Harris, and Uncle Tom these of which are the most vital to the story line.

At first glance, Harriet B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin can be viewed as a monumental, progressive, and successful abolitionist novel, but upon further examination, we as an audience can see that although the novel was progressive for it’s time, it ultimately fails to live up to it’s reputation as a novel that preaches equality for all. Through the novel’s main character Tom, this notion of failure can unmistakably be seen. Stowe’s representation of Tom as a more feminine character rather than masculine not only undermines her end goal of gaining equality among all races, but it also does an injustice to the “black man” by reinforcing the stereotype that the African-American race is inferior to the white race. In “”Masculinity” In Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Wolff presents with compelling evidence as to how Stowe portrays Tom as a feminine character. Wolff defined what the stereotypical be feminine and masculine identities were doing the publication of the novel. Wolff ultimately gives Stowe too much credit; stating that she did this in an attempt to transform the masculine identity. I agree with Wolff’s initial prognoses that Tom is a more feminine character, but not with her interpretation of why Stowe portrayed Tom in this manner. Nevertheless, her definitions of masculine and feminine identity during the mid 19th century are crucial when looking at Tom as a feminine character. Although Stowe’s intentions were wholesome, she diluted the novels overall

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet B. Stowe had depicted a historical tragedy during ages of slavery. As a representative, one of the slaves, Tom, a preacher of Christianity, a fanatic believer who makes the contradictions become apparent. The thread running through struggle and conflicts is the theme of gradually developed overt rebellion as well as ideology like Christian infiltration.

For this essay I will be analyzing the role of women in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the 19th century it was common for the man to be the head of the house while the women sat back and did all the cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children. However, when looking at the main and minor characters in the novel, the audience just sees one perspective of these women until digging deeper and realize they all have a specific purpose that is just not as obvious. It also exercises the sense of good and evil in female roles and encourages the use of wisdom and power as a force for social change. Stowe is able to create a vast assortment of female individuals to cover all the different viewpoints women could have in this time period. This novel exemplifies how important children are to women, how gender roles are established, how stereotypical women’s personalities are, and finally how they influence their morals on their family.

It is this image of the "universal" mother that Stowe works with, in her famous book Uncle Tom's Cabin. In the spiritual sense, a mother's love is likened to that of Christ. Her love is unconditional for her children, similar to the divine love of God. It is this comparison that offers a new insight of motherhood. Not only does a mother love her own children with purity, but also she feels that love elevated towards all children. The ideal mother in Stowe's opinion is one who transcends her love towards all who suffer. The father figure in many of her writings is authoritative and protective towards his family, but often cannot understand the concerns of women towards other people. It is these concerns for slaves through the eyes of every mother that motivates Stowe and propels her message. In the concluding remarks of Uncle Tom's Cabin Stowe states,

Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin with intent to help spread the harsh realities and injustices of the institution of slavery in America. One of Stowe’s chief arguments in her novel is that slavery treats blacks unjustly. She considers slavery an evil and immoral practice that it should be immediately abolished and is calling for blacks to participate in ending their own enslavement. However, she appears to be proposing that the blacks should not revolt but instead should continue to be compliant to their masters and focus their attention into being devout Christians. Stowe portrays this stance through Tom who knows that through a peaceful submission to his masters and an unbreakable faith, he will ultimately achieve eternal

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in 1852, was written by a white northern puritan teacher, author, wife and mother of six named Harriet Beecher Stowe is an anti-slavery fiction novel which vilified slavery as an institution and relied heavily on religion as the moral reason why Christians, whether they be southern or northern, could not condone it or allow to continue. That Stowe imbued her novel with religious quotations and moral lessons to support her abolitionist message is a function of her upbringing in a family headed by a prominent minister. Her mother was a prayerful woman who passed when Harriet was very young. All of her six brothers became ministers, and she even married a Calvinist minister, who was a noted Bible scholar.

Over a hundred years have passed since Harriet Beecher Stowe first published Uncle Tom’s Cabin and it is still one of the most discussed, criticized, and analyzed novels of its time. Published in 1852, the novel is described as an anti-slavery melodrama that focuses on the sufferings and realities of slavery, while also illustrating how Christianity can overcome the evils of slavery and the destructions that it brings to human beings. The novel follows the life of Uncle Tom, and the characters around him, to educate readers from the north about the cruelty of slavery happening in the southern states. Stowe, who was an active abolitionist and Christian, placed many of her beliefs of Christianity in her novel with the use of her characters, such as Uncle Tom and Evangeline St. Clare, as well as pitting slavery against Christianity. Believing that by being a good Christian would help end the oppression of slavery.

With Stowe’s publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin many people were shaken either because they felt she portrayed slavery to its fullest extent or exaggerated the immorality of the institution. As can be assumed from the diversity of the North and South’s opinion on the matter there was a big difference between how they reacted to the publishing of the novel. The one group present essentially in the North but scarcely also in the South who praised the existence of the novel the most were the anti-slavery abolitionists. They were overjoyed knowing that someone had finally stood up on the matter and had proclaimed its reality. Not only did they like that Stowe was condemning slavery, but they were further ecstatic about the fact that Stowe depicted all aspects of slavery explicitly. She did

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, persuades the reader to believe that slavery is a detriment to social order by detailing the story with opposing arguments, an emphasis on maltreatment, and tragic death. She is also effective by directly addressing the reader.

After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin to protest the Slave Act and the institution of slavery. To support her case, Stowe uses three arguments. In the first argument, she explains that a “good” slave owner does not exist. The second argument reasons the morals of Christianity are against slavery. Lastly, the third case Stowe presents that slaves are not objects or property; they are humans with emotions and thoughts. She uses these bases to support that slavery is an immoral and cruel institution, and therefore should be abolished.