Literary Criticism of Uncle Tom's Cabin [Psychological Lense].

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Literary Criticism of Uncle Tom's Cabin [Psychological Lense]

        Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in order to persuade the readers that slavery was bad.  Her Christian views led her to do this and depict her characters as every-day life as she could and not be too over dramatic about everything that happened.  Her story could be interpreted as a non-fiction if the reader does not know the history of it all, because she uses a very subtle approach to get to  reader through making all events in the book seem very real as if she had really seen them.  Stowe's relationship with the book is that the book are her thoughts through a story.  Not just any thoughts, but her abolitionist views and how much she disagreed with slavery.

        Stowe not only uses the book as a whole to convince of slavery's evils.  She uses individual characters and their journies (emotional, physical, etc.) to get into the reader's head and make everything believable to the point where one thinks that the book is non-fiction..  She doesn't use a very abrupt way of getting her message across.  She tells things like they are.  Not all southerners are evil, and northerners aren't angels either.  Every scene that Stowe needs to, persuades the reader that slavery is evil and non-Christian.

        Uncle Tom, the protaganist of this book, is used by Stowe to introduce slaves as not being ignorant, rag-wearing, illiterate people.  Tom is a "pious fellow" as stated by Arthur Shelby: "No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow." (Pg.4).  Stowe also shows that Shelby is a good man himself, by showing that he actually cared for his slaves, and didn't treat them like objects.  But, you could get a bit confused by Shelby when he showcases Eliza's little boy to Mr. Haley as if he were some type of circus act, "Now, Jim, show this man how you can dance and sing." (Pg.5).  By giving two different views of Shelby at such an arly stage of the book, one can't really get a grasp on whether or not he really has sentiment, until further on in his and Mr. Haley's conversation.

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        Mr. Haley, on the other hand is shown to be a "wanna-be" higher class type of man: "He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the world."  (Pg.3).  Haley also seems to be a man who is very persuasive to get what he wants, but seems to make hollow promises: "Howsomever, I'll do the very best I can in gettin' Tom a good berth; as to my treatin' on him bad. you needn't be a grain afeard.  If ...

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