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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it and judge for yourself, 2 May 1999
By A Customer
Uncle Tom's cabin is frequently criticized by people who have never read the work, myself included. I decided I finally needed to read it and judge it for myself. And I have to say, that for all its shortcomings (and it does have them), it is really a remarkable book. The standout characteristics of this book are the narrative drive (it's a very exciting, hard to put down book), the vivid characters (I don't know what other reviewers were reading, but I found the characters extremely vivid and mostly believable - exceptions to follow), the sprawling cast, the several completely different worlds that were masterfully portrayed, and the strong female characters in the book. The portrayal of slavery and its effects on families and on individuals is gut-wrenching - when Uncle Tom has to leave his family, and when Eliza may lose little Harry, one feels utterly desolate.As for flaws, yes, Mrs. Stowe does sermonize a fair bit, and her sentences and pronouncements can be smug. Yes, if you're not a Christian, you may find all her Christian references a bit much. (But the majority of her readers claimed to be Christian, and it was her appeal to the spirit of Christ that was her most powerful tug at the emotions of her readers). Yes, she still had some stereotypical views of African-Americans (frankly, I think most people have stereotypical views of races other than their own, they just don't state them as clearly today). But in her time, she went far beyond the efforts of most of her contemporaries to both see and portray her African-American brothers and sisters are equal to her. The best way she did this was in her multi-dimensional portrayal of her Negro characters -- they are, in fact, more believable and more diverse than her white characters. Yes, at times her portrayal of Little Eva and Uncle Tom is overdone at times -- they are a little cardboard in places -- but both, Uncle Tom especially, are overall believable, and very inspiring. The rest of the Negro characters - George Harris, Eliza, Topsy, Cassie, Emmeline, Chloe, Jane and Sara, Mammy, Alphonse, Prue, and others, span the whole spectrum of humanity -- they are vivid and real. The comments of a previous reviewer that the book actually justifies slavery (because "it says it's no worse than capitalism") and that it shows that Christianity defends slavery are due to sloppy reading of the book. No one reading the book could possibly come to the conclusion that it does anything but condemn slavery in the strongest and most indubitable terms. This was the point of the book. The aside about capitalism was just that, an aside on the evils of capitalism. It did not and does not negate the attack on slavery. Secondly, another major point of the book is that TRUE Christianity does not and could not ever support slavery. Stowe points out the Biblical references used to claim that Christianity defended slavery merely to show how the Bible can be misused by those who wish to defend their own indefensible viewpoint. It's ridiculous to say that the book "shows that Christianity supported slavery". It shows that some misguided preachers abused certain Bible passages and ignored other ones to support their view of slavery. There is an overlay of the tired "Victorian women's novel" to this piece - that must be granted. For literary perfection, it will never take its place beside Tolstoy, Dickens and Austen. But it is a piece entirely of its own category. Nothing before or after it has been anything like it, and it IS a great, if flawed, novel. I highly recommend it. I give it 5 stars despite its flaws because it's utterly unique, and its greatness is in some ways is related to its flaws.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.
The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.
Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.
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20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A powerful book in its time, 20 Jan 2000
By A Customer
I found this book very hard to start with. It took me until I had reached more than half way through the book until I began to enjoy it. I think the reason for this was possibly that Harriet Beecher Stowe uses a lot of references to the bible and does seem to preach a lot. I found the sermons a bit off-putting, and I often needed a break from the book. There is no other story line to provide relief from the subjects of racism and Christianity, so it made the book quite hard going. In 1852, when this novel was first published, I can imagine that it would have had a huge impact on Christian Americans and spread the abolitionist message far around the country, but for me reading it later, I found it harder to imagine societies attitude at that time. It is also hard to imagine the reactions the book would have provoked in 1852, as there is no black slavery today. However, I still feel the book has relevance to racism and Christian attitudes today. I think it might have helped if I had spent some time reading about the events around 1852 in America to understand the background of the novel more. It is a powerful book and it was written to be controversial and motivate America to abolish slavery. To do this it follows the lives of several black slaves throughout the novel. Many incidents in the novel were based on real observation. I think it is a successful book as it opened my eyes to how harsh slavery really was. I was amazed at the difference in attitudes some of the slave owners had towards their slaves in the novel- Augustine St Clare being so indulgent of his slaves and the contrast of Simon Legree treating them like dogs, and refusing to believe they were human. Harriet Beecher Stowe uses Christian ideas of heaven and souls to persuade her readers that the black slaves were indeed people. She also uses the religious character of Uncle Tom to infer that many Negroes were more religious than their masters (a factor that must have been very important at the time the book was written). Stowe also uses conversations between characters to explore Christian attitudes towards slavery- how parts of the bible can be misused to support slavery when the whole of the bible could not possibly be seen to support the trade. She also explores attitudes towards the education of slaves and peoples opinions on the way they should be treated. When Eva died, the book made me feel very sad. The second half of the book made me feel emotions about the characters in contrast to the first half which I found almost boring!
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by Herman Melville
by Harriet Jacobs
