Harriet Breecher Stowe Analysis

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As Benjamin Franklin once so eloquently spoke, "either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."(). Perhaps the individual most personified by these words, Harriet Breecher Stowe believed from a young age that her actions and innate gift at writing could change the world. Of her most famous novel, Uncle Tom 's Cabin¸ her exposé on the brutality and immorality of slavery fed the currents of change that had already begun to rouse the country and American society. For Stowe, her impassioned writings and style, characterized by the poignant lifestyle that she led as an abolitionist, feminist, and woman of faith, has marked her as one of America 's most renowned authors and secured her place in global history. Harriet Breecher Stowe 's most …show more content…

However, greater criticism today has arisen from its didactic nature, because of the means through which Stowe wrote on the atrocity of slavery. The greatest criticism has arisen today due to the uncharacteristically pious personality of Tom and Eva St. Clare, as well as the racial stereotypes Stowe uses get her point across. As critic Veronica Margrave states about the overzealous tendencies of Eva and Tom in her passage, Rethinking Contemporary Criticism of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; "one sees clearly that both are meant to be allegorical characters, and Stowe has cleverly crafted them as such" (1). Meanwhile, some historians and readers disdain the novel for its racial stereotypes and patronizing attitude towards blacks, such as Tom 's subservient nature, especially when he promises to remain with St. Clare even if freed. However, again Margrave objects that Tom was "a Christian man who saw another in need, and chose to be a situational martyr, choosing another over himself. When viewed as one man helping another, Uncle Tom is not a sell-out; he is a noble disciple to his only true master, God"