Uncle Tom’s Cabin

📖 The Scoop

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“And, perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do not estimate honor and justice by dollars and cents.” Arthur Shelby, a Kentucky farmer, is heavily in debt. While on the verge of losing his farm and everything else that he owns, Shelby decides to cope up with the financial crisis by selling two of his slaves—the middle-aged uncle Tom whose faith is unwavering and, the son of Mrs. Emily shelby's maid Eliza, harry—to a gruff slave trader named Haley for money. But the Shelby family shares a warm and affectionate relationship with their slaves. What happens when Eliza, who was promised by the virtuous Mrs. Emily Shelby that her son would never be sold, comes to know of the arrangement? A heart-wrenching tale giving insights into the lives of the African American slaves in the pre-Civil war America, Harriet beecher stowe’s uncle Tom’s cabin highlights the evils of slavery. At once fierce and stirring, the book is credited to have fanned the flames of the abolitionist cause. The bestselling novel and the second bestselling book of the nineteenth century after the Bible, uncle Tom’s cabin continues to remain a significant part of American literature.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

‘One thing is certain, - that there is a mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a dis irae coming on, sooner or later.’

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Viewed by many as fuelling the abolitionist movement of the 1850s and laying the groundwork for the Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sentimental and moral tale of slaves attempting to secure their freedom was one of the most popular books of the nineteenth century. Centred round the long-suffering Uncle Tom, a devout Christian slave who endures cruelty and abuse from his owners, Tom is often celebrated as the first black hero in American fiction who refuses to obey his white masters. With other strong protagonists such as Eliza, a courageous slave who flees to the North with her son when she learns that he is to be sold, Beecher Stowe highlighted the plight of southern slaves and the breaking up of black families. Not without its controversy, more recent criticism has suggested that the novel contributed negatively to the stereotyping of the black community.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe's timeless and moving novel, an incendiary work that fanned the embers of the struggle between free and slave states into the fire of the Civil War. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin is the story of the slave Tom. Devout and loyal, he is sold and sent down south, where he endures brutal treatment at the hands of the degenerate plantation owner Simon Legree. By exposing the extreme cruelties of slavery, Stowe explores society's failures and asks a profound question: “What is it to be a moral human being?” And as the novel that helped to move a nation to battle, Uncle Tom's Cabin is an essential part of the collective experience of the American people.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

With an Introduction by Darryl Pinckney

and an Afterword by Jonathan Arac

 Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Genre: Fiction / Classics (fancy, right?)