Essay about Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe uses the character of Augustine St. Clare to play a very important role in expressing her views of abolition to the reader throughout the novel. St. Clare is, in himself, a huge contradiction of a character, as his way of life is supported by the same system that he despises, slavery. St. Clare professes multiple times in the book that slavery is wrong, yet he holds slaves and refuses to release them, making him a hypocrite whose morals are right, mainly because of his mother, but he is unwilling to do the right thing. St. Clare symbolizes some of the southern slave owners at the time who knew that slavery was a sin and an act against God, but refused to stand up and stop it. St. Clare is such an essential character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and he is an important part of the overall message of the novel and Stowe’s interjection of her abolitionist views that are throughout the novel.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a unique historical fiction novel which portrays life during the American Civil War. In this story, Harriet Beecher Stowe tells the tale of Uncle Tom, along with several other slaves, and their journey through the wretchedness of slavery. She combines ethics, redemption, religion, and prejudice and presents her readers with an immensely powerful book that gives off an awe-inspiring impact.

A.     Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, which surprises many of her readers. Stowe writes so passionately about slavery that it seems that she must have been raised in the South. Stowe was born into a strong Christian family, which explains why her novels have a strong Christian basis.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin may never be seen as a great literary work, because of its didactic nature, but it will always be known as great literature because of the reflection of the past and the impact on the present. Harriet Beecher Stowe seemed destined to write great protest novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin: her father was Lyman Beecher, a prominent evangelical preacher, and her siblings were preachers and social reformers. Born in 1811 in Litchfeild, Connecticut, Stowe moved with her family at the age of twenty-one to Cincinnati. During the eighteen years she lived there she was exposed to slavery. Although her only personal contact with the south was a brief trip to

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

Uncle Toms Cabin, written by Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe in 1852, made her the most widely known American woman writer of the 19th century. She was a housewife with six children, who opposed slavery with a passion. With the advice of her sister-in-law she decided to write this novel.

Overcoming the death of a loved one can be one of life's most difficult tasks, especially when that loss involves a parent or a child. Author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe grieved over death as both mother and child. When she was only five years old, her mother Roxana Foote Beecher, died of tuberculosis. Later at age 38, she lost her infant son Charley to an outbreak of cholera. Together these two traumatic events amplified her condemnation of slavery and ultimately influenced the writing of one of America's most controversial novels, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

     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.

Harriet Beecher Stowe uses her poignant novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to propagate the abhorrent treatment of slaves by white slave owners in the time period prior to the Civil War. Stowe addresses the subhuman treatment of slaves by confronting the white prejudice prevalent in her society. Stowe points to the dependent relationship of slaves on owners, the animal-like treatment of slaves, and the value of the slave’s soul to sway the reader into acknowledging the pervasiveness of white America’s prejudice and complacency in eliminating slavery.

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a character states, “The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections, - the separation of families, for example.”(104) Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a powerful story that highlights the importance of slavery and the effects it had on African Americans for 245 years. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book during the Civil War, which in my personal opinion was the peak of slavery in the country. Post war, there was an Era known as Reconstruction – in which the 13th amendment passed, officially abolishing slavery. This was a massive step for the United States, and changed our lives forever. Stowe points out that having human rights, does not genuinely express you as a free human – a tough pill to swallow for African American’s during the Reconstruction era. There has never been a movie made for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, due to fear of offending audiences and upsetting several people. Under certain circumstances, Uncle Tom’s Cabin can adapt to a more mellow, educated audience without antagonizing them, but would be more understanding to viewers if it provided them with a with a story they can identify with.

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.

While Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin overtly deals with the wrongs of slavery from a Christian standpoint, there is a subtle yet strong emphasis on the moral and physical strength of women. Eliza, Eva, Aunt Chloe, and Mrs. Shelby all exhibit remarkable power and understanding of good over evil in ways that most of the male characters in Stowe’s novel. Even Mrs. St. Claire, who is ill throughout most of the book, proves later that she was always physically in control of her actions, however immoral they were. This emotional strength, when compared with the strength of the male characters, shows a belief in women as equals to men (if not more so) uncommon to 19th century literature.

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.