Uncle Tom's Cabin Essay

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the most effective anti-slavery and the most discussed literature in 1852 written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was also extend modeled “on the autobiography of fugitive slave Josiah Henson.” It was estimated that the novel sold for over one million copies in 1854 (Foner). Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this novel for a reason, which was to describe the evils of slavery in the United States. In order to get the reader’s attention, Harriet Beecher Stowe crafted her literature with sadistic and villainous characters so that Americans could better relate to these issues. The main plot of Uncle Tom’s Cabin literature was to describe how slavery operated as a business. It mainly discusses the selling and buying of the slaves, and there is a particular focus on how traffic in slaves separated families. It also describes the efforts of the slaves trying to risk their lives to escape to Canada. The main noble character of this literature is named Uncle Tom who was sold separately, and eventually fallen

Although Stowe stated that the characters in her novel were not based on certain people, many events in her novel were actually related to real life incidents. While readers relating to these characters and incidents, slavery issues were transformed into something personal and emotional. Because of this, Uncle Tom’s Cabin had created enormous impacts. “Stowe’s novel helped move anti-slavery feeling in the North beyond the relatively small circle of abolitionist to a more general audience.” Her anti-slavery novel also changed the political views for the election of 1860. “And also helped the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln, whose view of anti-slavery had been publicized in the Lincoln-Douglas debate and also in his address at Copper Union in New York City