Question

In at least 150 words, explain how Uncle Tom’s Cabin is influenced by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s personal experiences.

Answer 1

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle's Tom Cabin" under the influence of having lived in the historical time when the abolitionism began to take shape among the inhabitants of the North of the USA. The book itself is considered as a response to the second act of fugitive slaves that was debated in the government during 1850. In turn, the author acknowledged having received as an influence, Josiah Henson's real life testimony narrated in his own memoirs. Later in 1853 the author established in her next book "Keys to Uncle's Tom Cabin" a series of documents and testimonies that at the time influenced the verisimilitude of the story with the real experiences of the slaves of those times.

While the novel in question represents a milestone in the abolitionist literature that opened the way to civil war, it is still plagued by stereotypes about black people, which existed among white people at the time. This in itself is somehow proof that while the author advocated abolitionism, she did not have in her life a real and close contact with slaves and actually, she was rather in sympathy with a common political cause between the inhabitants of northern America, what motivated her to produce the novel.