The book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by an anti-slavery White writer Harriet Beecher Stowe discusses the traumatizing experience that African Americans had to undergo through out slavery. The work of Stowe uses religion as a means of calling out the injustices of slavery.
This story is told through the lens of a particular character by the name of Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom, an enslaved man, who is being transported by a boat to New Orleans for an auction. Uncle Tom saved a slavery master’s daughter named Eva and as a “reward” the master bought Tom. When Eva gets ill and is believed to be dying she hopes her father, St. Clare, could free Tom. St. Clare dies right after and his wife sends all the slaves for auction. Uncle Tom continues to be an excessively subservient person.
Uncle Tom Cabin was the creation of the racial epithet “Uncle Tom” where it is used as an insult today to describe a Black person who is excessively obedient to a White person. Stowe book was to get a new wave of people to join the abolitionist movement by bringing the discussing the realities of slavery through Uncle Tom who is a devoted Christian that wants to show love.
Even though there have been criticism for it’s positive portrayal of black characters and how some scenarios were “oversimplified” this book is great for current-day readers. These books have to be discussed in schools due to its contribution of anti-slavery ideology. When I was taught slavery the lessons were generally about the starting point of slavery, some of the inbetween, and the Recontruction era the came after. However, there is importance to the stories of those who participated in abolitionism and Stowe is a great example of using religion to get people to convert to Christians and change their view points on slavery.
While the usage of religion is all throughout the book to promote Chrisiantiy as a means of a solution to stopping slavery as everyone is equal. There is importance in the story Stowe is the stories she is sharing because the main theme is that slaves were no different than their master, so they should have been treated as such.
While some of the vocabulary for me was unheard. I do not often read old books, so this was somewhat hard for me to read. However, this is another reason why old literature is important for students to explore the ideas of past writers and understand the way people would share their ideas through writing, especially considering the work as it is written – hearing directly from the source.