For discussion or writing

1. Throughout the novel, the author occasionally disrupts the narrative and speaks directly to the reader, a characteristic of many 19th-century novels. What is the effect of this style? Why does Stowe do it?

2. Eliza and George Harris and their son, Harry, are characterized as attractive, intelligent, and light-skinned blacks. What purpose does Stowe have in mind by portraying them in this way?

3. There are many families described in this novel. How does Stowe portray the women in these families? In an age when women had no vote, how does Stowe describe their place in society, and how does she make an appeal to their power?

4. What is the meaning of conversion in a religious sense? How does it work in Stowe’s novel? How is Topsy converted?

5. What purpose does the character of little Eva serve? Why is she linked so closely to Uncle Tom?

6. What is a martyr? How does Uncle Tom reflect the martyrdom of Christ in this novel?

7. This novel has been characterized as a sentimental novel. How does sentimentality work as a strategy to move readers’ sympathy toward slaves and thus to change attitudes toward slaves and slavery in general? In other words, how does feeling triumph over belief?

8. Throughout the novel, Stowe sprinkles many generalizations about the African race. Find examples and list some of them. Discuss the negative response to her book on the basis of her characterization of blacks, in particularly of the pacifi st Uncle Tom.

9. Uncle Tom’s Cabin clearly parallels the efforts of women and slaves to overcome the oppressive conditions of their lives. Contrast Stowe’s parallels of women and slaves with MARGARET FULLER’s parallels of them in Woman in the Nineteenth Century. How do the differences reflect the different aims of the authors?

10. Does Stowe present women as superior to men in spiritual and domestic matters? Consider the ways Stowe’s representations of men and women follow a pattern quite distinct from the sorts of sexual differences Margaret Fuller identifies in Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Explain the ways each woman writer uses sexual difference to achieve different political objectives.

11. Consider the way Stowe invests so much importance in family bonds and sacrifice for others. Contrast her approach with that of Ralph Waldo Emerson in “Self-Reliance.” In what ways is Stowe’s novel antithetical to the aims of Emerson’s independent individual?

12. Contrast the ways Stowe depicts male slaves, especially Uncle Tom, with the way Frederick Douglass represents slaves. Look particularly at the scene where Douglass decides to fight Mr. Covey. How does this scene contrast with Tom’s manner of relating to Simon Legree? Which version of slave manhood do you think would have been easier for the 19th-century American reading public to accept?

13. How does Stowe use racial and gender stereotypes in her characterization of Uncle Tom, Topsy, Little Eva, Eliza, George, and Simon Legree? Do any of these characters challenge common stereotypes? How?

14. Sometimes Stowe as the narrator of Uncle Tom’s Cabin will address her audience directly as “you” and “dear reader.” What is the effect of these direct appeals from the writer to the reader? Why do you think Stowe uses this technique?

15. Compare Stowe’s portraits of black women’s sufferings in slavery (Eliza, Cassy, Emmeline) with Jacobs’s account of her real life experiences. How does Jacobs’s narrative draw on some of the same sentimental conventions Stowe uses in her novel? How is Jacobs’s story different?

16. Stowe closes her novel by urging that all her readers involve themselves in the struggle against slavery: “There is one thing that every individual can do—they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly... is a constant benefactor to the human race.” What do you think Stowe means by “feeling right”? What kind of audience is she appealing to? Do you think her strategy is effective?

17. Uncle Tom’s Cabin achieves powerful results by allying a discourse of domesticity and sentimentality with a call for social reform. How does Stowe’s formula influence later American literature? Can you think of other novels that adopt similar strategies?

18. One of the most famous covers of an edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin reworks Edward Hicks’s famous painting A Peaceable Kingdom. Examine both the original painting and the Uncle Tom’s Cabin version. How does the painting for the cover of Uncle Tom’s Cabin revise the original image? What aspects of A Peaceable Kingdom would have made it an appealing image to the creator of the Uncle Tom’s Cabin cover?