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Rating: 
Summary: The most important book in American History
Review: A central text in American Literature and History, January 7, 2005
Reviewer: Tony Thomas (North Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews
Uncle Tom is probably the most important single book written in the United States of America. No one is really familiar with American culture, literature, relgion, and history if she or he has not read Uncle Tom.
To understand this book, I would urge people to consult Eric J. Sundquist's book New Essays on Uncle Tom's Cabin (The American Novel) and Jane Tompkin's Sensational Designs. The 19th Century world and reader that Stowe aimed at read and understood things so differently, that you will miss much without knowing how to look at this book the way Stowe wrote to them and the way they read.
This book has a broad purpose: literary to decide what is wrong with the entire world and present an answer. If you follow the sweep of the book you will find Stowe takes on everything from whether the issues of the 1848 revolutions can be resolved on the side of Democracy, to the question of marital relations amogn the free and the white. The issue of slavery is not the book's only focus. It is, in fact, the solution.
Stowe's real thesis here is that American Chattel slavery is the number one evil in the world, that this evil corrupts every institution in society North and South and corrupts far beyond the borders of the United States, and that no compromise with it or avoidance of it is possible.
To Stowe, slavery is an abomination not just because of the cruelty, savagery, exploitation, and degradation involved, but above all, it is an abomination against God, the most unChrist-like behavior possible.
Thus the relgious solution she offers is to become more Christlike in your opposition to slavery and to finally undergrow the Christic experience of dying for your sins and being reborn in Jesus Christ. That's right, in Stowe's time evangelical Christianity, rather than being a fob for right-wing politics, was practiced by some of the militant and serious opponents of slavery.
Stowe creates figures that are Christlike who like Christ die rather than yield to sin and influence the others in their faith. The supreme figure is of course Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom, as a a pejorative, comes not from this novel, but from the Tom shows that blossomed in the late 19th century which were a presentation of a mock version of this story with racist minstrel like charicatures of the African American characters.
In this book, Uncle Tom is a physically majestic, heroic, dignified person, whose faith and dignity are never corrupted, whose death is shown as a parallel to that of Christ in the resurrection of the souls of all around him required to eliminate Slavery. If he is passive, never disobeys his masters, and seems to have not much of a material interest of his own in life, it is because to Stowe this a reflection of his Christic nature.
No doubt at best Stowe sees him as a "noble savage" at Best. There is no doubt if one reads this book and even more clearly STowe's Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin which provided documentation for this book's depiction of slavery, that it is clear that Stowe did not believe African Americans were equal to whites. Her then-current immigrationist views are expressed in the way the one intelligent independently acting Black couple presented here leave the US for Canada once they escape slavery.
Yet, this book accomplished the purpose it had. It galvanized millions of Americans and more millions around the world to dramatically oppose slavery. Uncle Tom was one of the first true international best sellers. In a smaller country, where literacy was lower, and when many people bought books through private libraries where families shared books and the book was often read to family gatherings rather than by one person, Uncle Tom sold two hundred thousand copies in its first year and sold a million copies between its publication and the civil war.
Stowe was honest in her afterward and in other writings to say that her description of slavery in Uncle Tom is much prettier and more nicer than slavery was. She believed an accurate depiction of slavery--Stowe had lived in Cincinatti on the board with slaving Kentucky and traveled through the South--would be so revolting that her target audience of Northern whites would not read this book.
Her book launched a torrent of responses from white southerners as could be expected. However, the popularity of her book encouraged white authors, but especially Black authors to write antislavery books that responded to Stowe. Some of the foundations of Black American literature by authors like Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and Martin Delany are essentially response to Uncle Tom.
Perhaps the most dramatic is Delany's Blake or the Huts of America whose character is a double to Uncle Tom. However, Delany's hero does not submit to being sold "down the river." He instead runs away and travels throughout the US following the same course as the travels in Uncle Tom showing how slave conditions are so much worse than Stowe showed. Finished with that business, Blake leaves the United States for Cuba where he becomes part of a group of Afro-Cubans unwilling to suffer like Christ and Uncle Tom. Like the current leaders of Cuba, they start to organize an international revolution of Slaves and the oppressed!
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Summary: A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Niecie
Review: Never has a fiction book brought me to anger, laughter, sadness, joy and tears as this book did when I first read it 10 years ago. 10 years later, I am still feeling the emotional impact of the story. This book is not only about slavery; it's about the relationships between people, the psychological mind of a person who has been taught that they cannot think, the innocent wisdom of children. The novel is an easy read. The themes are not simple nor are they easy to digest for some but the emotional power of the story truly carries the reader through a historical whirlwind of justice and ethics.
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Summary: A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Niecie
Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a powerful antislavery novel written in the late 1800's. The novel helps the reader understand what it was like being a typical slave in the pre-Civil War south. Slaves were treated like they were less than human; had cruel "masters;" and were often beaten and whipped, sometimes to death, for the slightest mistake. They had absolutely no rights, and many slaves wished that they were dead, rather than be the "property" of a cruel monster who called himself better than them. It also conveys how unconstitutional the slave system was, since the Constitution clearly states that "All men are created equal." Family members were often split up and never saw each other again. The main character in Uncle Tom's Cabin, a slave named Tom, is separated from his family and friends but he is able to somehow maintain his religious faith even after witnessing and experiencing the brutalities of slavery. The novel had a huge impact on many people's lives when it was first published, and it stills does today. I believe the book is well-written and has great character descriptions. It is very thought-provoking and I enjoyed reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: something to think about
Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly was a profound fictional, yet real account of slavery in the deep South. I thought I knew the horrors of slavery, but I was sorely mistaken in that regard. After reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, I felt I had a new knowledge of the Pre-Civil War South.
Not only was the story both uplifting and heart-wrenching all at once, it was extremely well-written. I thought I would have an immensely hard time reading and comprehending this nineteenth-century best-seller. Much to my surprise, however, I got into the writing without much difficulty. Because of this, I was able to fully understand (without totally believing) what pains were inflicted upon those of African American blood in the days of slavery.
Stowe's characters are almost implausibly good or evil. This extremity helps to make her point more clear to the reader, and helps them to relate to Tom, Eliza, Harry, George, and all the others all the more. I also thought interesting the way that Stowe speaks to the reader directly, asking them what they would do in such a situation. The fact that the author would express her passions in such a time of national turmoil makes me respet her tremendously. It is one thing for one to write a book on the tragedy of slavery today, when all is said and done, but quite another for one to tell such a tale when friends are fighting friends, families even dividing over the very same issue.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly is a novel that is most definitely not novel. I would highly reccomend it to anyone with the capacity to feel for the poor people, who, had their lives not been chronicled, may still be enslaved and part of such a terrible system. I don't think anyone's collection of knowledge of slavery or that era in general would be complete without knowing of the triumph of Eliza, George, and Harry and the story of Tom's physical defeat, and spiritual prevail.
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Summary: Billy G's S.S. Life Among the Lowly Review
Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly was a profound fictional, yet real account of slavery in the deep South. I thought I knew the horrors of slavery, but I was sorely mistaken in that regard. After reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, I felt I had a new knowledge of the Pre-Civil War South.
Not only was the story both uplifting and heart-wrenching all at once, it was extremely well-written. I thought I would have an immensely hard time reading and comprehending this nineteenth-century best-seller. Much to my surprise, however, I got into the writing without much difficulty. Because of this, I was able to fully understand (without totally believing) what pains were inflicted upon those of African American blood in the days of slavery.
Stowe's characters are almost implausibly good or evil. This extremity helps to make her point more clear to the reader, and helps them to relate to Tom, Eliza, Harry, George, and all the others all the more. I also thought interesting the way that Stowe speaks to the reader directly, asking them what they would do in such a situation. The fact that the author would express her passions in such a time of national turmoil makes me respet her tremendously. It is one thing for one to write a book on the tragedy of slavery today, when all is said and done, but quite another for one to tell such a tale when friends are fighting friends, families even dividing over the very same issue.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly is a novel that is most definitely not novel. I would highly reccomend it to anyone with the capacity to feel for the poor people, who, had their lives not been chronicled, may still be enslaved and part of such a terrible system. I don't think anyone's collection of knowledge of slavery or that era in general would be complete without knowing of the triumph of Eliza, George, and Harry and the story of Tom's physical defeat, and spiritual prevail.
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Summary: something to think about
Review: Uncle Toms Cabin was an interesting book discussing the hardships of slavery in the 1800s. It takes you through life in the eyes of a slave, Tom. Uncle Toms Cabin shows you the hardships slaves went through to not get a beating from their master, though many endured that anyway. It opened my eyes to the reality of slavery, and the severity of it all. The book not only talks about slavery, but it also addresses the issue of religion. Although I did not get a chance to read Uncle Toms Cabin carefully, I enjoyed what I could of it and would definitely re-read it so I could get a better understanding.
i would also definitely recommend this book to anyone that is interested in reading about the slavery issues of the 1800s.
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Summary: Outstanding, but Slow Beginning
Review: When I started to read this book the only thing I knew about slavery was that it was appalling to the society, but towards the middle of this book I began to realize the hardships that the slaves had to go through back then. I couldn't imagine if I was split apart from my family in a slave trade. Harriet Beecher Stowe helps everyone reading this book understand what life would be like if we were slaves. During the time that I was reading this novel I couldn't believe all the hardships that Tom had to go through, going from master to master and having to leave all of his friends. Stowe does a superb job describing the charters and their personalities in this book. At the end of this read it helped me think of what life was like then, and to be glad that we live in the time period that we do. In conclusion, if you want a book that makes a difference in peoples' lives then Uncle Tom's Cabin is the right book for you.
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