Slavery, Christianity and Racism in Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Abstract

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe can be seen as a picturesque illustration of the struggle of slaves in 1850s in America. Stowe wrote the novel in response to the Fugitive Slave Law passed in 1850. It made slavery worse by legalizing the capturing and return of the run-away slaves to their masters. In 1850s, Emerson called it a novel that “encircled the globe”. Some of Stowe’s contemporary writers criticized the novel by saying that the events of brutality in the novel are falsely conceived and exaggerated. Stowe wrote A Key To Uncle Tom’s Cabinto highlight the authenticity of the narrative which just like Uncle Tom’s Cabin was popular with the masses. The novel is celebrated as a “moral battle cry” by Hughes who wrote an introduction to the book. Baldwin writing at the same time as Hughes attacked Stowe’s racism. Modern critics like Baldwin are usually skeptical of Stowe’s treatment of black Americans. They consider the novel a “sentimental melodrama”. Contemporary scholars like Jane P. Tompkins find Stowe’s use of sentimentality as a technique of “careful artistry”.  The novel’s depiction of women in domestic roles limiting their role to the “home” sounds problematic to the feminist readers.