Uncle Tom’s Cabin Allusions
Since the time it was published in 1951, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” written by Harriet Beecher Stowe has been investigated for several reasons. Stowe’s glorification of characters in the novel is often criticized by critics nowadays. Uncle Tom and Eva St. Clare are the characters that are commonly criticized. Both characters are represented as extremely righteous and they do not react to the harsh behavior of others.
However, what modern critics fail to realize is the connection the novel makes with the most popular book ever known by Christianity, “The Bible.”
By further investigating the characters of Eva St. Clare and Uncle Tom, characters that are the target of modern critics, the reader realizes that both of them play the key role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin Allusions. Stowe has cleverly made them as allegorical characters and only at this point can the reader realize how the novel is intelligently crafted to fit Christianity.
Majority of Americans are not familiar with the bible nor do they use Christian imagery as commonly as it was used in Stowe’s time, and this is the reason why modern critics are unable to grasp the characters involved in the novel as idealistic. As expected, this leads them to miss even the most apparent religious imagery made in the novel.
Evangeline St. Clare is one of the alluded characters in the novel. In the Bible, there is a popular verse that alludes precisely to the role played by Evangeline in the novel. She is the pacifist, leader and what her name already suggests, an evangelist who has a very strong relation with all characters in the novel.
Stowe is successfully able to represent her beliefs by the words used by Eva especially when she asks some of the questions that were considered fundamentals at that time like, “Doesn’t the
Bible