Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. She was the daughter of a Calvinist minister and she and her family was all devout Christians, her father being a preacher and her siblings following. Her Christian attitude much reflected her attitude towards slavery. She was for abolishing it, because it was, to her, a very unchristian and cruel institution. Her novel, therefore, focused on the ghastly points of slavery, including the whippings, beatings, and forced sexual encounters brought upon slaves by their masters. She wrote the book to be a force against slavery, and was joining in with the feelings of many other women of her time, whom all became more outspoken and influential in reform movements, including temperance and women's suffrage. The main point of Harriet Beecher Stowe in the writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin was to bring to light slavery to people in the north. In this she hoped to eventually sway people against slavery. Her book might have been influential enough to be considered one of the causes of the Civil Way. "Lincoln greeted her as 'the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war'" (ix). Uncle Tom's Cabin's main character is Tom. Tom is a good and pious man. E
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. Religion is the most pervasive of the three major themes of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Stowe was the daughter of a preacher and a highly religious individual, which the content and style of Uncle Tom's Cabin show clearly. The content uses both religious symbolism--the descriptions of the river and of Tom's vision--and religious morals--the exaltation of love above all other values, and the description of the Quakers. Stylistically, Stowe slips into a preachy style, especially at the end of the book. Stowe also advocates education of slaves in order to enable them to read the Bible. The second strongly evident theme is feminism. Stowe portrays women as strong characters and gives them active roles throughout the book. She also draws parallels between the subjugation of women and slavery. The final--and most obvious--them, is abolition. The entire plot of the book is about the evils of slavery; it was written to try to motivate people to eliminate it. Stowe is defiant and certain that slavery must not be slowly eliminated, but most stop immediately. All of these three themes are interconnected: the women are often the most religious; slavery is morally wrong; and slavery separates mothers from their daughters. The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin focuses on the lives of two slaves, who both start under the ownership of a Mr. Shelby, who is known as a man who treats his slaves well. Mr. Shelby, however, was indebted to a man of the name Haley, who is a slave-trader. In return for the debt owed to him, Haley wants two slaves one being the son of a beautiful mulatto woman named Eliza, and the other the devout Christian Tom, who is called Father Tom because of his sermons. Eliza is also a Christian, as are the rest of the slaves on Shelby's farm. Eliza loves her son dearly and rather than lose him to the slave-trader she takes him and heads to Canada, where she can be free. Haley follows but can't catch her before she goes from Kentucky, the state of the Shelby Farm, to Ohio. Haley then sends slave-catchers after her. He also goes back to the farm, and brings Tom on a
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Approximate Word count = 1451
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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