Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One reason I was drawn to read this work is, like The Prince gives us an etymologically unsound adjective, so the crude pejorative of an "Uncle Tom" does not gibe with this title character who is really a caricature of a slave buying the Christian message that supported slavery (slavery is bible-supported, we must suffer, reward is pie-in-the-sky eaten after death). Of course, the Xtian faith was also enlisted by the abolitionists and here Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) attacked the cruelty of slavery with an imagined pantheon that became influential, even in Britain, and made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North. While Uncle Tom is practically a crucified saint under Simon Legree's whip, Evangeline St. Clare the daughter of Augustine St. Clare and called Eva is a true visitiation of an angel. Eva often talks about love and forgiveness, even convincing the dour slave girl Topsy (a degraded stereotype that recalls to me Sheronda from Jackie Brown) that she deserves love.

Before dying, a terminally ill Eva gives a lock of her hair to each of the slaves, telling them that they must become Christians so that they may see each other in Heaven. On her deathbed, she convinces her father to free Tom... All of this is really over the top and one-dimensional, but Stowe is so earnest, so entertaining in her quaint descriptions, and so on the right side, that it is all warm and heartening.

This edition includes a conclusion where Stowe reveals from what sources most of the events are sourced from real slavery culture.


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