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Uncle tom's cabin literary analysis
Uncle tom's cabin literary analysis
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Is not always that a work of literature causes a great change in society or leads it into a road toward internal conflict or turmoil. An example of such work is the 1852 book by Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Many consider it if not the most, one of the most influential pieces of American literature ever published. Its enormous popularity was manifested in the rapidness in which it was sold, and in the eagerness shown by the American population in reading it. It is believed that the storyline in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was fundamental in arousing the feelings of antislavery much more than any other event in the antebellum period. One of the most amazing factors about this accomplishment refers to the identity of its author. This …show more content…
But, who was Harriet Beecher Stowe and what prompted her to write about what it was a very delicate subject at the time? Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Stowe was related by blood and marriage to a line of liberal theologians and clergymen. She received an extremely devout education and upbringing, placing emphasis on the Christian doctrines of salvation, atonement, sin, and guilt, all of which had an indisputable impact in her work. Her beliefs and ethics are shown in the personality of each of her characters. Uncle Tom, who in modern times has been vilified by many, including members of the Black community, in a very ignorant and unjust way, is portrayed by Stowe in a Christ like image. He forgives those who offend him, blesses those who curse him, turns the other cheek, and offers prayers for his oppressors and those who sin against him. The culmination of his unselfishness is established when he gives his life in order …show more content…
The barbaric treatment of the slaves by its owners, and the stories about their perils and escape from plantations, was well documented by the media of the time. But Stowe was successful where other abolitionist writers had failed, because her writings created a deep emotional link, and raise the slave to the status of a human being. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe portrays the slave as someone who was able to have to have thoughts and feelings, not just as a commodity that needed to be replaced by another. Stowe gives life to the views held by Americans about the humanity of the slaves, and places emphasis on how slavery was a tool used to separate families and abuse other human beings. She achieves so by providing chilling details about the extent of bravery and sacrifice the slaves were willing to achieve in order to maintain their dignity. She shows the maternal love of a woman toward her children when writing about Eliza and her escape from the south by crossing the icy Ohio River, all done to guarantee the freedom and safety of her child. Stowe goes further by shocking her audience with the story of Cassy, and how she commits infanticide rather than force her newborn to the calamities and indignities of slavery. Another mother, Lucy, kills herself when her small child is sold and taken
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. “Stowe, Harriet Beecher”. Date of Last Revision Unknown. 6 Jan 2002. <http://www.encyclopedia.com/printablenew/12373.html>.
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.
Books were a way for people to connect with characters, Uncle Tom's Cabin did this. Most of its readers were found sobbing after reading the heartbreaking but true story of a slave. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a slave narrative written by a woman named, Harriet Beecher Stowe. After the publication, the slavery issue was no longer just the Confederacy's issue, it affected the life of every person in the Union. Stowe brought numerous facto...
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.
Harriet Beecher Stowe is perhaps best known for her work entitled Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a heart-wrenching story about the treatment and oppression of slaves. Uncle Tom’s Cabin brings to life the evils of slavery and questions the moral and religious values of those who condoned or participated in such a lifestyle. While the factual accuracy of this work has been criticized by advocators of both slavery and abolition it is widely believed that the information contained was drawn from Stowe’s own life experiences (Adams 62). She was the seventh child and youngest daughter in her family. She was only four years old when her mother died, which left the young Harriet Beecher little protection from her "Fatherâs rugged character and doctrinal strictness" (Adams 19). To further complicate matters she was aware that her father preferred she had been a boy. According to Adams, although Stoweâs childhood was not entirely unhappy she would never forget...
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” opened the eyes of millions of people worldwide. The book portrayed the brutal life of the black slaves. It went on to sell millions of copies and was given the title “The Greatest Book of the Age”. (pg. 616) It is had been commented that this book had helped “lay the groundwork for the Civil War”, according to Will Kaufman, and is widely regarded to one of the reasons of the Civil War. Langston Hughes refers to this book as a "moral battle cry for freedom." The characters in her book debated the causes of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the future of freed persons, individualism and racism. The Civil War arose from a combination of causes counting regional conflicts between the Southern and Northern states, economic forces, and humanitarian concerns for the welfare of enslaved people. The four year war opposed one section of the country against each other and nearly rescinded the United States of America. It is no wonder why when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe, he responded that she was “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war” and I would agree with that statement of his. Whether this is true or not, the gush highlights the public linking between Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Civil War.
Written expression is a beautiful thing and is a freedom Americans are granted when becoming citizens here. Harriet Beecher Stowe is known as “the most important American woman writer of the nineteenth century” (Showalter). Famous for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet published ten novels during her writing career. Stowe began writing in the 1830’s to support her family of seven children and husband, Calvin Stowe. Stowe wrote with a comedic tone, but yet, she also had intention. She was a very bright, intelligent leader, and a visionary of equality amongst all. Stowe lead in a different way, she made history through her writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Despite writing
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1850s that “changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property”. (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) This book “demanded that the United States deliver on the promise of freedom and equality, galvanized the abolition movement and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War”. (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) “The strength of Uncle Tom's Cabin is its ability to illustrate slavery's effect on families, and to help readers empathize with enslaved characters.” (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center) As Foner mentioned: “By portraying slaves as sympathetic men and women, and as Christians at the mercy of slaveholders who split up families and set bloodhounds on innocent mothers and children, Stowe’s melodrama gave the abolitionist message a powerful human appeal.” (472) With this novel, Stowe wanted to convince Christians that God doesn’t’ approve slavery, that it is evil which must be destroyed.
...spiritual growth. When Stowe wrote her most famous publication, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she used those emotional experiences to relate to the feelings of the slaves she was writing about. Upon reading the book, one is almost drawn into it because the emotional aspects of the characters seem so real. The main reason for this is that Stowe was in a somewhat fragile emotional state and her emotions were very real and very strong when she was writing the book. The things Stowe went through were tough enough to break anyone down, but through her family and her faith she was able to make it through and make an impact on many people through her writing. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life experiences- discrimination, exhaustion, and loss- gave her the ability to relate emotionally to slaves which allowed her to write a book that effected public opinion by tugging at people’s emotions.
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 illumination of the brutal treatment of the slaves, both physically and mentally, are also apparent in the works of Stowe and Jacobs. Stowe, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, uses the stories of Eliza, Harry, Uncle Tom and Cassy to show how slavery, with both cruel and kind masters, affects different members of the slave community. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs focuses her work on the how the institution is “terrible for men; but is far more terrible for women” (B:933), adding sexual abuse to the atrocities of slavery. Douglass’ Madison gives the reader a masculine perspective on the
Among other things, Stowe’s publication of her novel was stimulated by the increasing tensions among the nation’s citizens and by her fervent belief that slavery was brutally immoral. While she was still young, Harriet’s family moved from Hartford, Connecticut, to Cincinnati, Ohio. At the time, Cincinnati was a battleground for pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, as well as being a city of religious revivalism, temperance conflicts, and race riots. Her father was a congregationalist minister and her oldest sister, Catherine, was a writer on social reform questions. It is not surprising, therefore, that because of her environment, Harriet became involved in movements emphasizing the moral injustice of slavery.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, though fictional, did more to change the hearts of Americans who were standing on the edge abolitionism than any other work at that time. In fact, near the conclusion of the Civil War she was invited to the White House in order that President Lincoln might meet the “little woman that started this big war.” Stowe felt that she had an obligation to inform the world of what really went on in the South, what life was really like for slaves.
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.
Stowe uses different perspectives of people who were affected by slavery and what they did to influence the abolition movement. Uncle Tom’s Cabin starts when Mr. Shelby, a plantation owner, sells two of his slaves: Uncle Tom and Henry. The book follows the perspectives of Uncle Tom and Henry’s mother, Eliza. Eliza heard of her young son’s fate and decided she needs to get him safe. During Eliza’s escape, she meets up with her husband, George Harris, who had run away a couple of days before. Both decided that their best option was to escape to Canada. A bounty man, Tom Loker, hunted Eliza and her family that led to George pushing Loker off a cliff to protect his wife and son. Eliza worried Loker would die so her and her husband rescued the man and took him to a nearby Quaker community.