Uncle Tom’s Cabin: a Feminist Novel

In response to the fugitive slave act of 1850, Stowe wrote Uncle Tom Cabin denouncing the rule that forbids helping or sheltering those fugitive. As a matter of fact, the central objective from writing this book is that to shed the light on the evil of slavery in north, so that may wake people up to react against this cruel matter. Astonishingly, the book was one of the factors that triggers the civil war between North and South to free the slaves. Beside to this central target of the book, it is considered as a feminist novel as well, yet it is written before the widespread growth of the women’s rights movement in the late of 18th century. Actually, there are some people, however, claim that this novel is not a feminist novel because as Tracey Thornton said in his article" ....Stowe empowers woman to change the complexion of society...yet on other hands, this power is only handed to them in the private sector, not the public....." Namely, he says that Stowe made most of the woman in the novel being active throughout their typical role as being mothers and wives, so there are still restrained to their statues without expanding to the better. However, manifesting women in such a way without that much progress regarding their case is a good start to talk about this issue because in that time the feminist movement has not reached the core yet, so it is more suitable to hint and imply to the matter in indirect way. In fact, Stowe reflects the power of women by three images throughout the novel.
First Image: women’s courage: Eliza Verses Uncle Tom: Throughout the novel, Stowe uses the technique of compare and contrast to raise and foster the ideas she wants to reach to the reader. Remarkably, Eliza and Uncle Tom occupy a parallel positions in the novel as there are two discrete stories running together in the novel. Both characters sustain the same torture from outside society. Nevertheless, every story has a total different ending due to the reaction of the