Uncle Tom's Cabin

The moving abolitionist novel that fueled the fire of the human rights debatein 1852 and condemned the institution of slavery through such powerfullyrealized ch... » 

The moving abolitionist novel that fueled the fire of the human rights debatein 1852 and condemned the institution of slavery through such powerfullyrealized characters as Tom Eliza Topsy Eva and Simon Legree. Firstpublished more than 150 years ago this monumental work is today beingreexamined by critics scholars and students. Harriet Beecher Stowe wasappalled by slavery and she took one of the few options open to nineteenthcentury women who wanted to affect public opinion she wrote a novel a hugeenthralling narrative that claimed the heart soul and politics of preCivilWar Americans. In a time when many whites claimed slavery had good effects onblacks Uncle Toms Cabin paints pictures of three plantations each worse thanthe other where even the best plantation leaves a slave at the mercy of fateor debt. Her questions remain penetrating even today Is man ever a creatureto be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? Though Uncle Tom has become asynonym for a fawning black yesman Stowes Tom is actually Americanliteratures first black hero a man who suffers for refusing to obey his whiteoppressors. Uncle Toms Cabin is a living relevant story passionate in itsvivid depiction of the cruelest forms of injustice and inhumanityand thecourage it takes to fight against them. «