Harriet Beecher Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to nineteenth-century women who wanted to affect public opinion: she wrote a novel, a huge, enthralling narrative that claimed the heart, soul, and politics of pre-Civil War Americans. An overtly moralistic work of unabashed propaganda, it is an attempt to make whites-North and South-see slaves as mothers, fathers, and children-as human beings. Her basic question remains penetrating even today: "Is man ever a creature to be trusted with ...
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Harriet Beecher Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to nineteenth-century women who wanted to affect public opinion: she wrote a novel, a huge, enthralling narrative that claimed the heart, soul, and politics of pre-Civil War Americans. An overtly moralistic work of unabashed propaganda, it is an attempt to make whites-North and South-see slaves as mothers, fathers, and children-as human beings. Her basic question remains penetrating even today: "Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power?" Includes unique illustrations.
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A book everyone should read. Even President Lincoln had something good to say about this book.
bookishwench
Aug 3, 2009
Stereotyped? I say moving
Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel was written witha specific purpose: to refute the common thinking of her time that slavery was acceptable because it was more often benficial than harmful.
Stowe's many tales of slaves and slave-owners, good, bad and in-between, are woven together as their lives intermingle, and show plainly and fairly all sides of the question as they existed in her day. And bring the reader, while moved with compassion for the oppressed, to the ineveitable conclusion of the evil of the entire system.
Themes of Christianity runeverywhere through the novel, giving hope to the victims and conviction to the oppressors, as well as to the silent observers.
I couldn't get the images of hopelessness out of my mind long after putting the book down. I highly reccommend it, but caution the reader that the 'n-word' appears quite often.
