"The book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is thought of as a fantastic, even fanatic, representation of Southern life, most memorable for its emotional oversimplification of the complexities of the slave system," says Gossett (4). Harriet Beecher Stowe describes her own experiences or ones that she has witnessed in the past through the text in her novel. She grew up in Cincinnati where she had a very close look at slavery. Located on the Ohio River across from the slave state of Kentucky, the city was filled with former slaves and slaveholders. In conversation with black women who worked as servants in her home, Stowe heard many stories of slave life that found their way into the book. Some of the novel was based on her reading of abolitionist books and pamphlets, the rest came straight from her own observations of black Cincinnatians with personal experience of slavery. She uses the characters to represent popular ideas of her time, a time when slavery was the biggest issue that people were dealing with. Uncle Tom's Cabin was an unexpected factor in the dispute between the North and South. The book sold more than 300,000 copies during the first year of publication, taking tho

slaves. They are worked so hard that they have no time to think or feel, and Legree sets them against each other. Tom almost loses his faith in God, but recovers it and continues his work among the other slaves. He becomes friends with Cassy, a good but despairing woman who has been Legree's mistress. Cassy arranges for her and Emmeline, the girl who has been chosen as Legree's next mistress, to escape, and she urges Tom to join them. He will not, but he allows himself to be brutally beaten by Legree rather than reveal what he knows about the women's whereabouts. The Shelby's son, George, arrives at Legree's plantation to rescue Tom, but it is too late. Tom is dying. He buries Tom, and swears on his grave that he will do everything he can to end slavery. On his way back to Kentucky, George meets Madame de Thoux, who turns out to be George Harris' sister. It is also discovered that Cassy, who is on the same boat, is Eliza's mother.

This story had a great impact on it's readers and it went on to play a sizeable role in our nation's politics. On the 29th of June, 1852, Henry Clay died. In that month the two great political parties, in their national conventions, had accepted as a finality all the compromise measures of 1850, and the last hours of the Kentucky statesman were brightened by the thought that his efforts had secured the perpetuity of the Union. But on the 20th of March, 1852, there had been an event, the significance of which was not taken into account by the political conventions or by Henry Clay, which was to test the conscience of the nation. This was the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. "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?"(Wilson 24).

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2985
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)