Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, was published in the year of 1852 to great success. In fact, in the United States, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was only outsold by the Holy Bible. But, does that success alone warrant an acceptance of the novel as a masterpiece, and a classic work of American fiction? Of course not. But, on the other hand, does its success justify writing off this novel as unworthy because, as the writer and professor Jane Tompkins puts it in her essay "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom 's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History", “as everybody knew, the classics of American fiction were, with a few exceptions, all succes d 'estime (a success through critical appreciation)” (122). To expect and …show more content…
Clare, whose name even comes from evangelism, or the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness (Stowe, chapter XXVI). And as Jane Tompkins argues, this is the most offensive event of the novel to modern critics, and they dismiss it as “nothing more than a sob story that the whole case against sentimentalism rests” (124). But, Tompkins correctly points out that “in the system of belief that undergirds Stowe 's enterprise, dying is the supreme form of heroism” (124). This notion of the meek dying for a powerful cause has its roots in the death of Jesus Christ in the bible, and was a powerful literary tool that naturally appealed to the nineteenth-century reader. Eva’s death is not the only example of this belief portrayed in the novel. Also, Uncle Tom’s death from the beatings of Legree, Sambo, and Quimbo is almost Christ like in nature, as Tom even forgives his killers (Stowe, chapter XLI). Both Eva and Uncle Tom attempt to convert many characters in the novel as well, showing, as Tompkins points out, “a novel that insists on religious conversion as the necessary precondition for sweeping social change” (130). In the modern day, society more often calls for change to come from sweeping laws and regulations from the government, but in Victorian America, most of society believed that true change came from a spiritual awakening. And, this would help …show more content…
Charles Dudley Warner in The Story of Uncle Tom 's Cabin, refers to the question that many modern day critics and scholars ask about the novel’s tremendous success, “Was this only an "event," the advent of a new force in politics; was the book merely an abolition pamphlet, or was it a novel, one of the few great masterpieces of fiction that the world has produced” (311)? Looking back we can see that Uncle Tom’s Cabin wasn’t simply an “event” or political pamphlet, but a full-scale and highly successful literary attack on the evils of slavery that trumped even the power and influence of the politicians and government of the time. It is well-known that Abraham Lincoln even greeted Stowe in 1862 as ‘the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war’, referring to the Civil War, which ended the institution of slavery in the United States. But, Stowe did not write her novel simply for political reasons. As Tompkins explains, Stowe wrote her novel as a tool to turn the world from the rule of force to the rule of “Christian love”, and to bring about the “institution of the kingdom of heaven on earth” (141). This is what the everyday American of Stowe’s time could connect with, instead of just a political plea, but is also what causes
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852. This anti-slavery book was the most popular book of the 19th century, and the 2nd most sold book in the century, following only the Bible. It was said that this novel “led to the civil war”, or “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. After one year, 300,000 copies were sold in the U.S., and over 1 million were sold in Britain.
Nineteenth century America was in need of a courageous man or woman who would stand up for those who did not have a voice. Slavery was ruining the lives of thousands, yet nobody cared to do anything about it. Harriet Beecher Stowe rose up to meet this need by writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book that clearly outlined its intended audience, the reason it was needed, the faults of slavery, and the effect of this information on the reader.
While lying on her death bed, in Chapter 26 of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, little Eva says to the servants in her house who have gathered around her, "You must remember that each one of you can become angels" (418). In this chapter and the one before it, Eva has actively worked to make the people surrounding her into "angels," taken here to mean one who is saved by God. In chapters 33 and 34 of Stowe's book, Tom similarly works, though more quietly, to turn the other slaves at Simon Legree's plantation into "angels." Both of these scenes, and particularly the evangelical characters within them, reveal Stowe's Methodist theology, a theology that rejects the predestination of earlier American Christianity. In Stowe's theology "each one" of the people can be saved; God's love is universal. Original sin still exists, but now an individual is given control to escape this sin by embracing God's love. At the heart of the theology and the resultant morality that Tom and Eva evince, is a warm, knowable God, who is knowable through love, and the heart.
Two books of the era that were influential in changing public opinion about slavery are The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself , published in Britain in 1789 and Uncle Tom’s Cabin , written by a white woman abolitionist named Harriet Beecher Stowe. The first is an account of the author’s life from his capture in Africa to his eventual freedom and travel adventures around the world. The second is a fictional account of the lives of slaves and masters in the pre-war South. Written from different perspectives, at different times, and in different styles, both works employ the concept of home to advance the anti-slavery cause. Though Equiano promotes more of an adventurous manliness than Stowe’s Uncle Tom, both works exalt to some extent the “cult of dome...
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has had a tremendous impact on American culture, both then and now. It is still considered a controversial novel, and many secondary schools have banned it from their libraries. What makes it such a controversial novel? One reason would have been that the novel is full of melodrama, and many people considered it a caricature of the truth. Others said that she did not show the horror of slavery enough, that she showed the softer side of it throughout most of her novel. Regardless of the varying opinions of its readers, it is obvious that its impact was large.
Every great civilization or country has had at least one dirty little time in their history that all would rather forget. America knows this feeling well, especially within the 19th century, the slave era. America was divided, the North was generally against slavery and all for letting the African Americans roam free in a colony in Africa. The South on the other hand viewed African Americans as tools, essential to the economy and work, however still just tools. Tools to be bought a sold and driven until the breaking point just like every other implement in the shed. Fast-forward to the 21st century, slavery is gone from America and has become that dirty period of time that is spoken about in whispers. A question of immeasurable proportions arises, how were the incredibly difficult slave owners of the South get convinced that slavery was bad? The largest answer is the power of rhetoric, otherwise known as the written word. Two books played the largest role in molding of American society, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas by none other than Frederick Douglas himself. Important stylistic and rhetorical choices made by Douglas and Stowe greatly affected change in the major political and moral issue of slavery in 19th century America in two different ways, through politics via the male society (Douglas) and through the home front via religious and moral cases made to women (Stowe).
It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction. Perhaps, this is so, as truth wears no veil; it is stark reality. There are no soft edges in truth. Only the most zealous hunters, those willing to meet the sword, actively seek it. The majority, while considering ourselves open to the truth, may only realize it when it comes disguised as something else. In short, it seems that we need to see it as not threatening, but molded and plied into something we can digest. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave is a brilliant and powerful piece which details one of the worst times in American History. After reading Douglass' work, those seeking the truth about slavery could not help but to have been compelled to denounce this institution and those who upheld it. Yet, while there are many who undoubtedly applauded his work, those were difficult times with no easy answers, and truth is relative, at best. In sharp contrast to Douglass' eloquent narrative is Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. This piece of sentimental fiction, while based on factual accounts, offered Americans an idealized view of slavery. The slaves were relatively content with their kind masters, and the vivid images of brutality that Douglass describes are not seen in Uncle Tom's Cabin. However, Stowe, writing from a woman's standpoint, presented her own truth in a context that Americans could relate to at the time. In spite of her gender and subsequent social position, and perhaps because of it, through her fiction, Stowe succeeded in portraying the institution of slavery for the abomination that it was.
She published more than 25 books, but that was her best-selling book. Stowe liked to think her book could make a positive difference, and a lot of people agreed. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1851 in the abolitionist newspaper, ‘The National Era.’ The book showed how slavery effected families, and it helped readers understand enslaved characters. Stowe's characters talked about the causes of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law, the future of freedom, and racism. Uncle Tom's Cabin added to the war by showing the economic arguments about slavery. Stowe's writing inspired people in a way that speeches and other books could not inspire. Some supporters thought the book wasn’t solid enough to end slavery. They didn’t like her support of the colonization movement, and felt that Stowe's main character Tom wasn’t aggressive enough. More anti-slavery supporters praised the book for showing the impact slavery had on families and mothers. Pro-slavery supporters said that slavery was practiced in the Bible, and accused her of telling dramatic things. Stowe responded to the negativity by writing The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her second anti-slavery novel, Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, was more influential to other non-supporters.The Underground Railroad was a secret tactic organized by people who helped men, women, and children escape from slavery. It ran before the Civil War and it wasn’t underground or a
There are several common themes in the film Beloved and the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. They both deal with the effects of slavery on the white and black communities. They both address the brutal treatment of blacks within slavery, including the sexual mistreatment of black women by their masters. A prevalent theme out of both works is the power of a mother’s love for her children. The film Beloved paints a grim picture of what it was like to be a black woman in the 1860’s. Like the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it takes us through the story of an escaped slave in the South traveling to the North in order to gain freedom. The main characters, Sethe, in the movie Beloved, and Eliza, in the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, are both mothers who want nothing more that to see their children delivered from the bonds of slavery. Although the film and the book were created using very different styles, their objectives are somewhat similar.
Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear” (Stowe 349). This quote, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is found directly after the southern slaveholder, Simon Legree, killed his slave and main character of the novel, Uncle Tom. Stowe, who had learned from former and fugitive slaves, wrote her novel about the atrocities they endured. Many say that this controversial novel aided the abolitionist cause and started the American Civil War before it even began. Stowe’s mid-19th century novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, changed the way many Americans thought about slavery and its evils through the use of her own background and her adaptation of free slave’s stories.
The Effective Story in Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern abolitionist, published her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin contracts the many different attitudes that southerners as well as northerners shared towards slavery. Generally, it shows the evils of slavery and the cruelty and inhumanity of the peculiar institution, in particular how masters treat their slaves and how families are torn apart because of slavery. The novel centers around a pious slave, Uncle Tom, and how he is sold over and over again. It shows the different attitudes that Tom’s masters share about slavery, and how their slaves should be treat.
Life is viewed differently by everyone. Some see the positive and optimistic life full of wonder, while others see the negative and pessimistic life of dead ends. The perceptions are based on the experiences that molds the good and the bad. We see what our past has been and what our future would most likely be. Our beliefs of life cannot be changed by another’s perspectives. In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Eliza and George are two slaves that live in different environments to influence how they react and think in different situations.
William Arthur Ward once said, "Real religion is a way of life, not a white cloak to be wrapped around us on the Sabbath and then cast aside into the six-day closet of unconcern." Religion is the one thing that people can usually tolerate but never agree upon. Each faith seems to have an ordained assumption that they have the correct thoughts on how to life one's life or how to think about things or the way to act in certain situations. Still, each religion has its own "sub-religions." If someone refers to Christianity, there are several different religions that are blanketed under that umbrella: Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian are just a handful. The inconsistencies that are associated with everyone's belief about religion run into deeper ruts of confusion. This confusion leads people to have distorted views as to what they believe and what their religion is all about. This is no different from the feelings about slavery by Christians in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Throughout the novel, Christianity presents itself in a few different lights; as a twisted and deformed glimmer of what religion is supposed to be with undertones of bigotry and prejudice, an innocent yet naive child that brings joy to everyone he or she meets, and as Uncle Tom himself, the standard for what a Christian is supposed to be. These different portrayals of Christian living come from Stowe's own beliefs about Christians and brings them into the light.
The foremost example of the contrast between the slaves and those portrayed as being evil rested in the character of Uncle Tom. A devout Christian, Tom never lost sight of his convictions, staying true to his Christian beliefs until his death. Even when under the harshest conditions, Tom never lost faith, while praying to God and finding ways to keep his faith. After succumbing to the wrath of Simon Legree, Tom was viewed as a martyr by withstanding his doubts and staying firm in his beliefs, ending his own life, while saving those of two others.
Since the 17th century when African slaves were brought over by Dutch slavers, Christianity has been used to justify the act of enslavment. Missionaries sailed with slavers and tried to convert the Africans sold into slavery many times. During the 19th century Christianity was a great factor in helping institutionalize and even justify the suffering of the slaves. Slaves were made to believe through verses of the Bible that if they suffered in their current lives, they would have a better existence after they passed on. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, puts forth the lives of many different slaves and their masters in a way that was one of the contributing factors to igniting the civil war. The book focuses on the tension between the morality of religion and how religion was used to institutionalize slavery, particularly for the main character, Tom. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin presents the interpretative tension between religion and how it was used by the white slaveholders to rationalize Tom’s bondage and servitude for him and themselves.