When she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe had no idea that she was releasing a literary giant on the nation. 10 years after the publication, President Lincoln accredited her as “ the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war." Written in direct response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Uncle Tom’s Cabin became the greatest fiction success of the nineteenth century. Today, the novel is considered one of the most famous in the world, having sold hundreds of thousands of copies in more than sixty languages. Uncle Tom's Cabin had an immense impact on the conflicted nation, while it aroused the antislavery sentiment in the North, it provoked angry rebuttals in the South more than any other event in the antebellum …show more content…
She was writing just after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, this law made it illegal to give aid to a runaway slave. With her book, Stowe revealed the horrors of Southern slavery to people in the North, while holding a deep connection to religion. She was concerned with producing a work of literature that persuaded the northerners through literature that slavery was wholly immoral, with the necessity of ending it. What made the book so vehement to an indictment of slavery was Stowe’s emphasis on the forcible breakup of slave families. Tearing child from mother and husband from wife, the novel exposed the brutality and heartlessness of slavery. Throughout the novel, Stowe continues to emphasizes the importance of Christian love, even through the toughest …show more content…
The main character, Uncle Tom, is an African American who keeps his integrity and refuses to betray his fellow slaves at the cost of his own life. His firm Christian principles in spite of his brutal treatment by his prosecutor, Simon Legree, made him a hero. Stowe convinced readers that the institution of slavery was evil, because it supported people like Legree and enslaved innocent people like Uncle Tom. Because of her work, thousands of northerners rallied to the anti-slavery cause. Anti-slavery advocates praised the book for emphasizing the impact slavery had on families, and helping the public understand and empathize with enslaved mothers. The southerners were outraged and claimed that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible. They accused Stowe of fabricating unrealistic, one-sided images of Southern slavery.They reacted by writing their own novels, these depicted the happy lives of slaves, and contrasted them with the miserable presence of Northerners. Most blacks also responded enthusiastically to the novel and abolitionists saw it as a tremendous help to their cause.
Within the text itself, the reader goes through the mind of a Christian, female abolitionist. For example, in the arguments Stowe uses, the reader receives some details of the slavery debate. Uncle Tom's Cabin contributed to the outbreak
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an 19th century novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe that is basically a canon of masterpieces that depict the cruelties of slavery throughout this time period. Stowe uses her novel to spread her opinions of slavery throughout the United States at this time while using typology to tie the whole problem of slavery into Christianity. Uncle Tom’s Cabin shows that a person’s attitude toward religion intertwines with attitude towards slavery. The story follows the characters of Uncle Tom, Eliza, Eva, the St. Clare’s, and
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.
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.
Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe for the first time. The book that the former president is referring to is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a 1850s book about the moral wrongs of slavery. It has been said to be the most influential anti-slavery book that has ever been written. Harriet Beecher Stowe is an effective author. She uses numerous literary devices such as facile characters, character foils, and symbolism to highlight her abolitionist views and constructs a persuasive argument against slavery.
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published the startlingly truthful and heart-wrenching novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She was angered by the new and stricter Fugitive Slave Law and created this novel, emphasizing the cruel separation of families in order to inflame the North. She owed the creation of it to God and said “her anti-slavery sentiments lay in the evangelical religious crusades of the Second Great Awakening.” Stowe’s novel sold millions of copies, transformed into plays and opened the eyes of American people, to the injustice of slavery. Arguably, this novel even helped the North win the Civil War: It was read by a profuse amount of youth in the 1850’s who would inspired to fight because what Uncle Tom’s Cabin portrayed. Additionally, it was an impetus for people up North to not enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. Five years later to when this novel was published Hinton Helper’s novel, The Impending Crisis of the South made its debut. Helper was a non-aristocratic white in the South and his novel utilized statistics in order to help prove that the non-slaveholding whites were the real victims of the Peculiar Institution. This novel was banned from the South, however countless copies were sold in the North. This novel, as did its former, reduced the South’s ability to live under the same roof as their anti-slavery brothers up North.
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.
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.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and was published on March 20th, 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel that talks about how slavery is harmful, traumatic, and it tears families apart and it should be abolished. This book protests the Fugitive Slave Act. Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped cause the Civil War because it was controversial. It wrote about the evils of slavery and put a face to slavery. People in the south believed that the whole story was a lie, and slavery was good. In the south, Harriet Beecher Stowe was portrayed as a villain. But, in the north people agreed with the book and the bad things that were talked about. That caused a huge debate about who was right which eventually led to the civil war. Document C says that Southern people think Harriet Beecher Stowe is a liar and people who believe her aren’t smart. A divide was
Harriet Beecher Stowe published a novel called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the year 1857. Selling over 300,000 copies in one year, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had made an enormous impact on the people who read it. According to the textbook, “Much of its emotional impact came from its portrayal of slavery as a threat to the family and the Cult
Harriet Beecher Stowe tells stories of different slaveholders apathetic, abusive, and hypocritical actions towards various slaves in her beautifully written novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, during the 19th century in order to help convey the true evil behind slavery- no matter the circumstance. The author allows readers to view slavery from seemingly safe environments to hostile settings, and continually shows the bad in every situation. The reality of slavery is shown to anyone willing to read this novel, and Harriet Beecher Stowe does a good job of combining various stories that tie together in order to complete her goal.
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
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
The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in the United States in 1852. The novel depicted slavery as a moral evil and was the cause of much controversy at the time and long after. Uncle Tom's Cabin outraged the South and received praise in the North. The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin was a major turning point for the United States which helped bring about the Civil War.
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.