Uncle Tom's Cabin Play Analysis

The stage version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s cabin’ utilises blackface minstrelsy in its production. When white actors wear black-face makeup giving them the impression of huge white eyes and large round mouths all the while speaking in a heavy Southern black accent it is called blackface minstrelsy, it paints a poor image of blacks. When married with a simple plot, blackface minstrelsy successfully highlights racially charged stereotypes with the characters in question becoming representative of this.
Stowe was contacted after finishing Uncle Tom’s Cabin about collaborating on a dramatization of her novel. Due to Stowe’s Congregational upbringing she believed that theatre was pointless and as such declined to collaborate. However due to the

Though Aiken’s version is said to be the most accurate account of the text the addition of aspects such as the bloodhounds to Conway’s adaptation made it far more popular. Conway’s dramatization also included a new character named Penetrate Patyside into the story as well as the use of bloodhounds in Act 1, audiences couldn’t see the dogs but could hear the sound effects. The dogs would become a main attraction of the “Tom Shows” alongside the auctioning of the slaves in Act 4 which included considerably more singing and dancing to a banjo by the slaves as best to showcase their talents and entertain the audience members. One major difference to the novel is that apparently in Conway’s script Eva does not die but by the most striking significant alteration from Stowe’s original text is to have Tom rescued in Act 5 by George Shelby instead of Tom being killed by Legree. This ending to the stage adaptation is incredibly significant to Stowe’s abolitionist ideology in particular as it serves to drain her story of its anti-slavery