Tom Sawyer's Cabin

Author: (American) Harriet Beecher Stowe
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Features: Uncle Tom's Cabin portrays both different manifestations and personalities of enslaved people, as well as the various faces of slave owners. It vividly depicts the Christianized, submissive enslaved man Tom, who has been brainwashed by the slave owner's ideology, and also creates characters like Eliza and her husband George Harris, who refuse to accept the slave owner's control over their lives and exhibit a spirit of rebellion. At the same time, it reveals the inner worlds of various types of slave owners and their distinct behaviors. Through the descriptions of these two enslaved characters—Tom and the couple George Harris—the book conveys to readers that Tom, who submits to his fate and follows the slave owner's whims, is doomed to death, while George and Eliza, who dare to resist and fight, achieve rebirth. Therefore, Uncle Tom's Cabin played a positive role in social development, particularly in advancing the American abolitionist movement and contributing to the victory of the just side, represented by Lincoln, in the American Civil War. As a literary work, the renowned American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called it "the greatest victory in literary history."