Summary Of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not a textbook, an encyclopedia entry, or a peer-reviewed scholarly journal article. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel does not provide a factual and legally compelling argument for the eradication of slavery, but that is not what it sets out to do. Peer-reviewed articles, encyclopedia entries and textbooks are only compelling enough to make a reader shrug and tip their hat to the author for making a point, not for persuading hearts to change and act for justice. The purpose of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is to make the readers see the evils of slavery. James Baldwin argues, “her book was not intended to do anything more than prove that slavery was wrong; was, in fact, perfectly horrible” (533). Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not a “very bad novel,” as Baldwin claims (533). Stowe’s heavy use of sentimentalism masks the deficiency of her logical argument with emotional appeal, dehumanizing Tom in the process; however, the story accomplishes its intended purpose in spite of this. Baldwin describes sentimentality as a “mark of dishonesty” (533), but one could reasonably argue that dishonesty can be justified in the name of righteousness. In his novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien states: “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (O’Brien 182). Stowe’s entire novel is emotionally gripping. The characters of Eva and Marie, for example, are written with a marked lack of dimension: Eva is only capable of goodness, and Marie is only capable of wickedness. “‘Eva’s peculiar,’ said her mother. ‘Very. There are things about her so singular; she isn’t like me, now, a particle;’ and Marie sighed, as if this was a truly melancholy consideration” (Stowe 172). Eva is a pure and blameless foil to her wickedly selfish mother. While Marie describes the slaves as a “degraded race” (174), her daughter loves the slaves. Eva’s father, Augustine St. Clare, describes her holiness: “‘O, Evangeline! Rightly named,’ he said; hath not God made thee an evangel to me?’” (181). Stowe does not portray Eva and Marie as realistic human …show more content…
She poses the question in her reader’s mind: “How can such an evil institution exist against such a faultless individual?” The issue at hand is that she could not convince her readers that slavery was wrong without depicting Tom as a perfect, Christlike, man. Tom does no wrong, ever. Despite the extraordinary evil he faces, Tom never resents, never hates, and never harms anything, which makes him appear more angelic than human. “The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power,” (Baldwin 538). Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicts Tom as an angelic, Christlike figure; though noble, entirely unbelievable and unrelatable. “(the novel fails) in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended” (538). Stowe does not assign Tom with any flaw that makes him human. The only thing about him that is real is the fact that he is black, and that he is a slave. Stowe could not portray Tom as a human being and still convince the masses that slavery is evil. She simplifies the book’s most moving characters, Eva, Marie, Legree, and Tom, down to a single story; which, in turn, simplifies the issue of slavery