Uncle Tom's Cabin Christianity

Patrick Kavanaugh
Dr. Garvin
Texts and Contexts
10 May 2017
The Importance of Christianity
The novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 in an attempt to start an anti-slavery campaign. The novel was used to depict the horrendous conditions for slaves, and how terrible they were treated. Harriet Stowe, an American abolitionist, felt very strongly about slavery, and decided to take action by writing the novel. She came from a religious family and felt that slavery was detrimental to American society. Stowe wrote a number of influential novels, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin was one of her best, and most influential works. Although she used novels as her primary source, she was also known for her public stances on the current

She used the power of Christianity to help convey her point on the importance of Christianity. The two characters from the novel that she used are Eva and Tom, who are both committed to standing for what's right and making an impact on the world. Stowe gives them both loving personalities to create a bond between them and the reader, as the reader is expected to become attached them them and their values. The book introduced Tom before Eva, and as the the continues, the readers are introduced to a sweet girl with outstanding morals, who is Eva. Throughout the novel, both Tom and Eva are caught between colliding cultures. Authors often use the power of colliding cultures to due to the likeness of the reader being able to relate. Stowe uses this clash of cultures to help illustrate her stance of Christianity. Often times, when cultures collide, characters are surrounded by situations that question their identity, which is depicted a number of times in the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The principal of the novel relies on the value of love, and that Christianity can be used to fight against slavery. However, this can be a struggle for those in those novel due to their surroundings, which is filled with non-Christians who firmly believe in slavery. This clash between non-christianity and the devoted Christians, like Eva and Tom, is the perfect approach for Stowe to display her stance on the importance of Christianity. Stowe attacked her target audience of predominantly religious white Americans to help emphasize that slavery is the polar opposite of what Christianity is. Through this, she relays her point that no Christian should be able to condone slavery. Throughout the novel, Stowe placed a number of culture collisions to emphasize her stance. Whether these collisions deal with Christians and non- Christians, or Christians and those who do claim they practice religion but don't, Stowe used these