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Courtney Blankenship
Dr. Duda
Early American Literature
November 28, 2011
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
and Abolition
In the early to mid-1800s, slavery plagued America. Whether a person was bought, born into slavery, or indentured, they were seen only as property. Everything about their lives, including jobs, spouses, children, and, sometimes, death, was controlled by their owners. Many slaves were beaten, pulled from their families, starved, and overworked by masters who felt as though one slave was as good as another; they believed that if one slave happened to die, then they could just replace them by buying a new one. There were, however, slaves who were owned by “good” masters. Some masters preferred to treat their slaves with kindness, allowed them to spend time with their families, kept them well-fed and clothed, and often loved their slaves and thought of them almost as a friend. To an abolitionist, however, it didn’t matter what kind of master they were; in the end, they were still a slave-owner. Abolitionists questioned a human’s right to own another human being. According to them, nothing made a white man any different from a colored man, other than the shade of his skin. With the mindset of a true abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe set out to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in order to
“persuade her audience that slavery was intolerable” (Piacentino 135). Uncle Tom’s
Cabin became one of the most influential anti-slavery novels written.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin follows the lives of two slaves from the same plantation, Eliza and Tom. After Tom is sold and Eliza escapes with her child, readers are shown the paths

Blankenship 2 taken by the two on their way to find freedom. Eliza and her husband long for freedom from a land in which they aren’t welcome. Tom, on the other hand, longs for a heavenly home where he will be free to pray and sing and love God. Because it is told from a thirdperson perspective, the reader is able to experience multiple opinions on slavery. The differing opinions and experiences between the different masters, slaves, and traders provide a wide range of emotions and opinions for the reader to examine and question.
For example, when seen through the eyes of Tom, slavery is a negative thing that allows a man to be ripped away from his wife and children against his will and taken to a place where he could be whipped just for thinking of them. However, Halley, a man who is often buying, selling, and trading slaves believes that blacks are different and can handle the hardships thrown their way because their sentiments don’t run as deeply as white folks. Stowe is able to cancel-out opinions of those who are pro-slavery, mainly by presenting her enslaved characters as humanly as possible. Some illustration of this is the heartbreak felt by Tom when he leaves his family or when he fills a sick woman’s cotton sack with his cotton to keep her from being short. Presenting her characters in such a way enables the reader to sympathize with them when misfortune comes their way.
When she began writing her novel, Stowe informed her editor that she had a plan for changing the opinions of those against freeing slaves. According to Ellen Goldner, she intended to paint pictures for her readers because you can’t deny what a picture shows. Her pictures have been defined as “brief scenes ranging in length from a paragraph to a page or two, which feature dense physical description over the plot’s advancement or the narrator’s commentary” (71). Some of the most popular images painted by Stowe’s words are those of little Eva and her enslaved playmate, Topsy:

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“There sat the two children on the floor…Topsy, with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.
“What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won’t you try and be good?”…
“Couldn’t never be nothin’ but a nigger, if I was ever so good,” said Topsy. “If I could be skinned, and come white, I’d try then.”
“But people can love you, if you are black Topsy…”
The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears; large bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand….while the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.
“Poor Topsy!” said Eva, “don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you, as me….He will help you to be good; and you can…be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white” (238-39).
Such images found throughout the novel often strike a reader because one immediately recognizes its meaning (in this case, that a white slave owner and a slave are both capable of going to the same Heaven and are loved by the same God), even if it is something that goes against the readers own beliefs. These images give justification to different perspectives and enable someone to understand what makes an abolitionist feel the way they do. Such justifications also make it difficult for the reader to sympathize with another, opposite belief because they begin to understand the reasons why Stowe wrote her novel.

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The publication of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been said to be the true beginning of the abolition movement. Goldner writes that “Stowe’s verbal images and their popular variants became magnets for cultural fascination, which helped to catalyze the identifications and exclusions of an imagined abolitionist community…as well as the identities of opposing sections and groups.” In the
1840s, slave narratives claimed a large audience; by 1852,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin broke every sale record made by an American Novel. The novel was so popular that its characters, quotes, and storyline could be found in plays, songs, sentimental house items, and children’s books. The consumer fad caused by
Stowe’s writings helped form an imagined “national” community of abolitionists.
This imagined community linked thousands of strangers together through the shared experience of reading a novel. The bond created through Uncle Tom’s
Cabin paired with the products of the craze caused by it, led to a shift in
“witnessing.” Abolitionists, especially those in the North, wanted to make their position on slavery known. This was more easily done with the help of the other abolitionists and the artifacts resulting from the novel (72-3). The abolitionists grew in strength and became more outspoken for their cause, which led to the start of the Civil War in 1861. Stowe’s novel had such an impact on the opinions and actions of the abolitionists that, upon meeting with President Lincoln, he greeted her by saying, “So, this is the little lady who made this great war”
(Morgan 2).
The impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is undeniable. The words used by
Stowe painted pictures realistic and strong enough to spark a fire inside of many,

Blankenship 5 which led to a war. It’s hard to say if the Civil War was unavoidable; maybe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin presented the common ground necessary for the abolitionists to come together and take a stand for what they believed. Or maybe, without the publication of the novel, they would have banded together anyway to make their opinions known. Regardless, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel has left an everlasting impression on the world of American Literature.

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Works Cited
Goldner, Ellen J. “Arguing with Pictures: Race, Class, and the Formation of Popular
Abolitionism through Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Journal of American & Comparative
Cultures. Summer 2001: 71-84. OhioLink. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.
Morgan, Jo-Ann. “Picturing Uncle Tom with Little Eva-Reproduction as Legacy.”
Journal of American Culture. March 2004: 1-24. OhioLink. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.
Piacentino, Ed. “Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’.” Explicator. Spring 2000: 135-139.
OhioLink. Web. 18 Nov. 2011.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Mineola: Dover Publications, 2005. Print.