‘So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!’ These words, said to have been uttered by Abraham Lincoln, signal the celebrity of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The first American novel to become an international best-seller, Stowe’s novel charts the progress from slavery to freedom of fugitives who escape the chains of American chattel slavery, and of a martyr who transcends all earthly ties.
اضافة اعلان
At the middle of the nineteenth-century, the names of its characters — Little Eva, Topsy, Uncle Tom — were renowned. A hundred years later, `Uncle Tom’ still had meaning, but, to Black people everywhere it had become a curse.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife, Emily Shelby, believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them — Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby’s maid Eliza — to a slave trader.
Emily Shelby hates the idea of doing this because she had promised her maid that her child would never be sold; Emily’s son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he sees the old man as his friend and mentor.
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