Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin

For me, I agree with James Baldwin’s argument, which is “her sentimentality is nothing more than a mask for her racism, her belief that black souls and black bodies are ’fallen’ and in urgent need of salvation”. If we remove all the plots of slavery, we would find that this novel it is a normal sentimental novel that full of religion. Moreover, in my opinion, though the theme of this novel focus on slavery that is one of the most politic sensitive topics, she always try to lead strong feelings of readers and praise Christian that provide helps to black slaves.

 Like she wanted readers cry for Eva’s death in Chapter XXVI. I think even though this chapter is moving, she used too many irrelevant descriptions to create a sad atmosphere. In this chapter, we can figure out two totally different attitudes of treating black slaves by Eva and Miss Ophelia. Eva treated slaves well. When she’s dying, she still cares about all slaves in her family. Eva said that “Loving Christ most of all”. In this case, I think this beloved character, Eva, written by Stowe, is to advocate the belief of Christian. We can also find many hymns inserted in many chapters, which stands for the belief of Stowe.

   I think both two claims have their own understandings of this novel. According these two articles, I have deeper understanding of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and realize its important significance to Civil War. Though many writers criticize that the reason why this novel so popular in America is that this novel finished in a slavery era, no one would like to write something about black slaves, we also cannot deny its influence to slavery and America. Moreover, Uncle Tom’s Cabin not only influences the development of American literature, but also influence the development of criticism literature.