Mary Jane O’Connor
TA Kylene Cave
IAH 207 Section 013
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Stowe’s Christian Bias and It’s Intrusion on Cassy’s Otherwise Empowering Character Development
Cassy is one of few characters within Uncle Tom’s Cabin to lack any real type of religious identity. This is because of a variety of reasons which will be explained below, but what is more important than Cassy’s agnosticism is the statement that Cassy’s will to survive and escape captivity despite a religious figure makes. Cassy has one of very few happy endings among characters in the novel, and it should not be overlooked that this is perhaps because she has no faith. It is not until the very end of the novel that Cassy’s character accepts God, which is only done to maintain …show more content…
Cassy still seems to have some faint type of spirituality, though, and she refers to herself as a witch with “the devil in me" (296). to Legree. Legree fears Cassy and the evil that he can see in her soul, he refers to her as a “she devil” (316). This fear is something Cassy realizes she can capitalize on, and she devises a plan to scare Legree, literally, to death. Cassy embraces an evil within herself, and it’s because of this she is able to avenge herself. This proves that it is not religion but, in fact, Cassy’s lack of faith at all that is what actually saves her life. However, this revenge and escape does not make up for everything that she has lost; her family, her sanity, and her …show more content…
It is after this that Cassy explains that “God had had mercy on her” (491) and that she has finally converted to Christianity. While it could be argued that this only further proves Stowe’s obvious positive outlook on Christianity and how it can solve every personal and societal injustice, it should be considered that Cassy’s character development says more about Stowe’s obvious Christian bias. The entire book is practically a commercial for Christianity, saying that faith should drive the reader and the character’s moral compasses. Stowe would argue that it is through faith that slavery can and will be abolished. However Cassy, one of, if not the most independent characters, gains freedom and her family all without religion and perhaps is only capable of doing so because of this lack of faith. Stowe ruins this unconventionality that Cassy has because if she didn’t finish the book with Cassy as religious, it would have contradicted her noticeable propagandizing for Christianity, which the rest of the novel follows to a T. Cassy is a rebellion not only in the novel but outside of it, she embraces something wicked within herself and uses it as her only device to get what she ultimately wants. This sends a completely different message to the reader than Stowe intended so Cassy’s complex character is watered down to yet another person “saved” by God in
TA Kylene Cave
IAH 207 Section 013
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Stowe’s Christian Bias and It’s Intrusion on Cassy’s Otherwise Empowering Character Development
Cassy is one of few characters within Uncle Tom’s Cabin to lack any real type of religious identity. This is because of a variety of reasons which will be explained below, but what is more important than Cassy’s agnosticism is the statement that Cassy’s will to survive and escape captivity despite a religious figure makes. Cassy has one of very few happy endings among characters in the novel, and it should not be overlooked that this is perhaps because she has no faith. It is not until the very end of the novel that Cassy’s character accepts God, which is only done to maintain …show more content…
Cassy still seems to have some faint type of spirituality, though, and she refers to herself as a witch with “the devil in me" (296). to Legree. Legree fears Cassy and the evil that he can see in her soul, he refers to her as a “she devil” (316). This fear is something Cassy realizes she can capitalize on, and she devises a plan to scare Legree, literally, to death. Cassy embraces an evil within herself, and it’s because of this she is able to avenge herself. This proves that it is not religion but, in fact, Cassy’s lack of faith at all that is what actually saves her life. However, this revenge and escape does not make up for everything that she has lost; her family, her sanity, and her …show more content…
It is after this that Cassy explains that “God had had mercy on her” (491) and that she has finally converted to Christianity. While it could be argued that this only further proves Stowe’s obvious positive outlook on Christianity and how it can solve every personal and societal injustice, it should be considered that Cassy’s character development says more about Stowe’s obvious Christian bias. The entire book is practically a commercial for Christianity, saying that faith should drive the reader and the character’s moral compasses. Stowe would argue that it is through faith that slavery can and will be abolished. However Cassy, one of, if not the most independent characters, gains freedom and her family all without religion and perhaps is only capable of doing so because of this lack of faith. Stowe ruins this unconventionality that Cassy has because if she didn’t finish the book with Cassy as religious, it would have contradicted her noticeable propagandizing for Christianity, which the rest of the novel follows to a T. Cassy is a rebellion not only in the novel but outside of it, she embraces something wicked within herself and uses it as her only device to get what she ultimately wants. This sends a completely different message to the reader than Stowe intended so Cassy’s complex character is watered down to yet another person “saved” by God in