ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -A major theme in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the problem of slavery and the treatment of humans as property, concepts that Stowe counterbalanced against the morality of Christianity. Stowe’s depiction of slavery in her novel was informed by her Christianity and by her immersion in abolitionist writings.

Detailed explanation-2: -Uncle Tom’s Cabin was part of a large body of anti-slavery writing. Stowe borrowed from books by enslaved people including Josiah Henson, Lewis Clarke, and Solomon Northup. As a white woman, Stowe was seen as less threatening to white readers than Black abolitionists, helping her novel reach more readers.

Detailed explanation-3: -The theme of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, then, is the conflict between the evil of slavery and the good of Christian love. Eva, symbolic of this sort of love, is killed (mythically) by slavery, but like Tom, she triumphs over death and thus over evil.

Detailed explanation-4: -Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published on this day in 1852, was technically a work of fiction. As white abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe pointed out in the non-fictional key to her work, however, the world of slavery in her book was actually less horrible than the real world.