Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not a textbook, an encyclopedia entry, or a peer-reviewed scholarly journal article. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel does not provide a factual and legally compelling argument for the eradication of slavery, but that is not what it sets out to do. Peer-reviewed articles, encyclopedia entries and textbooks are only compelling enough to make a reader shrug and tip their hat to the author for making a point, not for persuading hearts to change and act for justice. The purpose of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is to make the readers see the evils of slavery. James Baldwin argues, “her book was not intended to do anything more than prove that slavery was wrong; was, in fact, perfectly horrible” (533). Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not a “very bad
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She poses the question in her reader’s mind: “How can such an evil institution exist against such a faultless individual?” The issue at hand is that she could not convince her readers that slavery was wrong without depicting Tom as a perfect, Christlike, man. Tom does no wrong, ever. Despite the extraordinary evil he faces, Tom never resents, never hates, and never harms anything, which makes him appear more angelic than human. “The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power,” (Baldwin 538). Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicts Tom as an angelic, Christlike figure; though noble, entirely unbelievable and unrelatable. “(the novel fails) in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended” (538). Stowe does not assign Tom with any flaw that makes him human. The only thing about him that is real is the fact that he is black, and that he is a slave. Stowe could not portray Tom as a human being and still convince the masses that slavery is evil. She simplifies the book’s most moving characters, Eva, Marie, Legree, and Tom, down to a single story; which, in turn, simplifies the issue of slavery
She poses the question in her reader’s mind: “How can such an evil institution exist against such a faultless individual?” The issue at hand is that she could not convince her readers that slavery was wrong without depicting Tom as a perfect, Christlike, man. Tom does no wrong, ever. Despite the extraordinary evil he faces, Tom never resents, never hates, and never harms anything, which makes him appear more angelic than human. “The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power,” (Baldwin 538). Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicts Tom as an angelic, Christlike figure; though noble, entirely unbelievable and unrelatable. “(the novel fails) in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended” (538). Stowe does not assign Tom with any flaw that makes him human. The only thing about him that is real is the fact that he is black, and that he is a slave. Stowe could not portray Tom as a human being and still convince the masses that slavery is evil. She simplifies the book’s most moving characters, Eva, Marie, Legree, and Tom, down to a single story; which, in turn, simplifies the issue of slavery