Work of a masterpiece
Work of a masterpieceHarriet Beecher Stowe carefully planned her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, to change the mindset of her readers that would in turn change culture. She accomplished this feat by capturing the reader's sympathy toward the characters, both black and white, and evoking compassion with the dramatic story line. The readers become witnesses to the suffering in the novel and they feel the emotions that the characters feel.
One of the ways Stowe uses to win the compassion of the reader is by getting them to relate to the characters. Back in the day the novel was written, many people thought of blacks as a commodity, with no more feelings than a bale of hay. In Uncle Tom's Cabin, there is a representative mixture of characters who held that opinion, and those that had mercy on them and thought of them as equals. In a few parts of the book, she writes of cruel whites who own good compliant slaves, and the reader cannot help but side with the blacks. This happens with the St. Clare family. After Eva and Augustine die, there is nobody left except Marie to care for the household and the slaves. The fact that she treats the slaves as people who are less than human, and doesn't care about selling and splitting up families makes the readers see the pain they go through. Another example of this is with Simon Legree. He is the only white person on the plantation, and he is an evil, unchristian man. Obviously, readers will see him with disgust and sympathize with the blacks.
Stowe uses common emotions to bring readers to understand her standpoint. There are many scenes in the book where there are common tears being shed between blacks and white, showing that they are equal human beings. It shows that all people have the same types of feelings no matter what color of flesh that they have. One excerpt of the book, Eliza tells the Bird family of her life story and all of them unite with their tears.
"The two little boys…they were sobbing…Mrs. Bird had her face fairly hidden in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down her black, honest face…Our senator was a statesman…and so he turned his back to the company, and looked out of the window, and seemed particularly busy in clearing his throat and wiping his spectacle...
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