Review by Edward Tanguay September 27, 1996

My first reaction to this book is that it was based much more on religion than I had imagined it to be.  As I expected, Stowe's main purpose of the book was to nakedly expose the institution of slavery to America and the rest of the world with the hopes that something would be done about it.  To achieve this purpose, she showed us individual instances of slavery in a country that prided itself on its Christianity and its laws protecting freedom.  She showed us how absurd slavery is "beneath the shadow of American laws and the shadow of the cross of Christ."

I was also surprised at the various kinds of relationships between whites and blacks of the South.  We learn that not all whites were bad and not all blacks were good, but that there were quite a mixture of characters and relationships.  That was a strength of the book.  It's not a melodrama, but shows an evil institution which allows both good and evil and all those in between to exist under it, and how this institution affects the individuals.  Legree's plantation, for instance, corrupted anyone who came there.  But the reader understands that it is the system that allows this which is the root of the problem, and that, by the way is a North/South problem, not just a Southern problem.  She specifically calls on the North at the end of the book to ask themselves if they can live with the institution of slavery in their country and still call themselves Christians.  A wise move.  

One of the most memorble characters was, of course, Eva.  Stowe was able to give her a true, simple, child's voice which spoke unadulterated truth about the relations and happenings around her:

"Poor old Prue's child was all that she had,--and yet she had to hear it crying, and she couldn't help it!  Papa, these poor creatures love their children as much as you do me.  O! do something for them!  There's poor Mammy loves her children; 've seen her cry when she talked about them.  And Tom loves his children; and it's dreadful, papa, that such things are happening, all the time!"

You can't help but say, "Oh, my god, she's right you know!"  Eva's is a powerful voice in this book.  But Eva's Jesus-like gathering of the slaves before she died was a bit much in its reference to Jesus.  How old was Eva? Certainly younger than to have the mature sense of death and consciousness of duty than most adults ever attain.  Are these the words of a little kid:

"I sent for you all, my dear friends," said Eva, "because I love you.  I love you all; and I have something to say to you, which I want you always to remember . . . .  I am going to leave you.  In a few more weeks, you will see me no more--"

The character Eva seemed to be an innocent child telling her family and the world about how she saw slavery which exposed a lot of its evils.  But when she turned into a mini Jesus and preached to the slaves before her death as Jesus had preached the disciples before his death, I felt the author had given to too great of a "jump into maturity " to be believable, unless the short life of Eva was really supposed to be a irreal miracle occurance.  Eva was powerful enough as a real character who looks at slavery from innocent eyes.  Her transfiguration into a holy person at the end took some of her punch away.

As a Jesus-character, Tom transcends the book as a Christian hero.  An interesting study would be a comparison of Tom and Jesus.  One direct parallel, for instance, is the direct temptation that Legree put upon Tom to break him and make him give up his religion for Legree's "church."  It parallels to the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the desert.

An important question asked throughout the book was "If we emancipate, are we willing to educate?"  In her essay at the end, Stowe chides those white Americans who feel they are doing the slaves a favor by sending them back to Africa so that they can live in the supposedly free country of Liberia.  She directly asks the reader, "Would you be willing to take a slave into your Christian home and educate him?"  This question went right into every household in the North.

A short introduction at the beginning of my book asked the question whether or not it was "good literary style" for Stowe to talk directly to the reader in the book.  I don't think Stowe was trying to a create literary work of art other than would serve her purpose of communicating to the reader what exactly slavery was in America at that time.  She wrote the book so that she could talk directly to the reader.  It may not be good literary style but it reminds the reader that "this books for you."

If you want to look at this book in terms of an interesting piece of literature outside its social and political context, I don't think you have much to look at.  The story itself is not interesting (the escape plan of Cassy was the high point), it's packed with religious dogma at every turn (borders on Puritan literature), and you don't see hardly any character development except perhaps for Augustine, but he is so wishy washy that his conversion right before his death doesn't give you any insights into his character or human nature.  This book is simply expository:  it uncovers the institution of slavery.  This is what makes the book riveting to read.

Stowe seems to have seen quite a number of individual incidents of slavery for her to be able to write powerful and moving scenes like this one in which the slave George gives Mr. Wilson, a former humane owner, the view of slavery in America from the slave's point of view.  This speech by George was the most powerful in the book:

  "See here, now, Mr. Wilson," said George, coming up and sitting himself determinately down in front of him; "look at me, now.  Don't I sit before you, every way, just as much a man as you are?  Look at my face,--look at my body," and the young man drew himself up proudly; "why am I not a man, as much as anybody?  Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you.  I had a father--one of your Kentucky gentlemen--who didn't think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses, to satisy the estate, when he died.  I saw my mother put up at sheriff's sale, with her seven children.  They were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I was the youngest.  She came and kneeled down before old Mas'r, and begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot.  I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to his place."
   "Well, then?"
   "My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister.  She was a pious, good girl,--a member of the Baptist Church,--and as handsome as my poor mother had been.  She was well brought up, and had good manners.  At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near me.  I was soon sorry for it.  Sir, I have stood at the door and heard her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart, and I couldn't do anything to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a trader's gang, to be sent to market in Orleans,--sent there for nothing else but that,--and that's the last I know of her.  Well, I grew up,--long years and years,--no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul that cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding, starving.  Why, sir, I've been so hungry that I have been glad to take the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn't the hunger, it wasn't the whipping, I cried for.  No, sir; it was for my mother and my sisters.--It was because I hand't a friend to love me on earth.  I never knew what peace or comfort was.  I never had a kind word spoken to me till I came to work in your factory.  Mr. Wilson, you treated me well; you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and write, and to try to make something of myself; and God knows how grateful I am for it.  Then, sir, I found my wife; you've seen her,--you know how beautiful she is.  When I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could believe I was alive, I was so happy; and, sir, she is as good as she is beautiful.  But now what?  Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt!  And why?  Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger!  After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman.  And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it!  There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do in Kentucky, and none can say to him, nay!  Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, any more than I have any father.  But I'm going to have one.  I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone,--to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey.  But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate.  I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe.  You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!"

Powerful!  The realization that the slaves are in a country which just recently declared itself "free from oppression" makes the system utterly absurd and contradictory.  

With the voice of Augustine, Stowe tells us what slavery is really:

This cursed business, accursed of God and man, what is it?  Strip it of all its ornament, run it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it?  Why, because my brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and strong,--because I know how, and can do it,--therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy.  Whatever is too hard, to dirty, to disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing.  Because I don't like work, Quashy shall work.  Because the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun.  Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend it.  Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over dry-shod.  Quashy shall do my will and not his, all the days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last as I find convenient.  This I take to be about what slavery is.  I defy anybody on earth to read our slave-cod, as it stands in our lawy-books, and make anything else of it.  Talk of the abuses of slavery!  Humbug!  The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!

In painting the United States as the land of freedom or God's country, you cannot forget about slavery. What was it doing in the land of freedom?  What was it doing in a country that prided itself in its application to the teachings of the Bible? Slavery's social and political ramifications reach us even today.  It is in America's history and its roots. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is a must read for Americans so that we do not forget.

Edward Tanguay

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