Research Proposal on "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

Research Proposal 3 pages (1024 words) Sources: 1 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Stowe's (2005) Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling book of its time period, but there are many people who have a love/hate relationship with it. At times, it looks as though Stowe (2005) is almost unforgivably racist, and that she cares about saving and preserving the souls of white people, even though they are believed to be forfeiting their place in Heaven through the ownership of slaves. Others think that Stowe (2005) was only working with what was available and significant during her time, and that she is showing a radical message about the significance of slavery, how it was wrong, and how it was unpatriotic, unchristian, and not very womanly, either.

For each copy of the book that Stowe (2005) sold when it first came out, around ten people actually read it. For every person who read it, probably 50 saw some kind of dramatic adaptation of it. Many of these adaptations, however, took away a lot of what Stowe (2005) was trying to say and just kept the racial stereotypes and the melodrama, which was not the same thing that was portrayed in the book. In order to get a better understanding of what Stowe (2005) was really trying to say, a reading of the book was necessary. No matter how people learned about it, though, in nineteenth-century America, Uncle Tom's Cabin was big business and it stayed that way for quite some time.

The book became the first one to ever have products spun off from it, like tea sets, card games, board games, sheet music, action figures, and dolls. These are very common with books and movies today, but it was unheard of back then -- until Stowe (2005) made it happen with a book that came out of nowhere and that everyone was talking about. It permeated the culture of America at that time, and people could not seem to be sure how they felt about it. There was some middle ground, but a lot of the people who read it or heard about it either loved it or hated it. They either saw the value in it, or found it offensive -- and their minds were not easily changed once they had made them up.

Of course, for those who are looking to fault Stowe (2005) there are many ways to do so, and many reasons that can be used. The culture today is very politically correct in most circles, and her work is not at all like that. Most of what she shows are racial stereotypes, pulled primarily from the minstrel stage. These are not at all what would be seen today. Many, many organizations and private individuals would speak out against something like Uncle Tom's Cabin if it were written today. In the time period in which it was created it was still shocking, but not because of political correctness it was more shocking because of the way it shed glaring light on what was the status quo at the time. Despite being the status quo, though, few people actually talked… READ MORE

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