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II. Description of the Author and Uncle Tom’s Cabin
2.1 Introduction of the Author
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was an American author and abolitionist, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S. and Britain. It made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in North America. Stowe was born into a respectable family that was to become famous: her father Lyman was a clergyman who was famous for supporting abolitionism, and ever held the post of director of Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio. Her husband Calvin Ellis Stowe was one of the leading professors in the seminary. Two of her brothers, Henry Ward and Edward, were celebrated preachers. And her older sister-Catherine, she was the pioneer in Women’s education. The family was all opposing to raising slaves and they were all famous abolitionists. Coming from a family with good Christian tradition, she was deeply influenced by Christianity and became a pious Christian. Influenced by Calvinism, and seeing slaves’ poor life and slave owners’ cruelty in America, Stowe was determined to write a book to expose the America law, to show her sympathy on the miserable slaves and to remind the whites and the whole world of humanity. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) is her most important work, which attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S. and Britain. It made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in North America . It angered and embittered the South. The impact is summed up in a commonly quoted statement apocryphally attributed to Abraham Lincoln. When he met Stowe, it is claimed that he said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this Great War”.
2.2 The Content of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a realistic work which was written by the famous America novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe. The novel focused on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters-both fellow slaves and slave owners-revolve. There are two major plots: For one parts, it narrates George Harris and his wife Eliza’s struggle for freedom. Hardly could they bear the America slavery system which would part them and sell their boy, they decided to escape and fled into a free country. Through all difficulties and dangers, they finally reached their ideal land, Canada. For the other part, the book described the protagonist, Uncle Tom’s ups and downs in his whole life. Unlike George Harris, Uncle Tom accepted all prosperities and adversities befalling upon him, he accepted them sedately and meekly by the support of his Christian religion. However, though the Lord could comfort his soul, he could not protect his body. Under the evil law and evil slavery, the novel ends with Uncle Tom’s death.
III. Analysis of Characters
Mrs. Stowe portrayed several vivid characters with distinctive temperament. Among them, there were the white and the black, the nobles and the slaves, the kind and the cruel. In her description of all these characters, we can learn that Mrs. Stowe advocated that people were all equal and should be against racial discrimination. Some people think that the dark skin of African slaves externally represents negative qualities such as evil or heathenism. However, Mrs. Stowe viewed slaves that evoke these presumptions actually contrasted their internal strength and spirituality. In fact, black men were better than some white slaveholders who had intentional purposes.