Discussing Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Reading Group Guide for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Novel
Questions about Uncle Tom's Cabin to facilitate discussion at book club. Questions surround, plot, character, moral issues, and symbols from the novel.
1.) Uncle Tom’s Cabin is about Uncle Tom, correct? He is the title character of the novel. However, a hero generally goes through change during the course of story. Tom is Tom from beginning to end. While tested, he never falters or fails so that he can heroically grow or redeem himself, which is the pattern expected of a typical hero.
Discuss the changes in some of the novel’s characters. Look at the development of George Harris, Augustine St Clair, Miss Ophelia, and George Shelby. Are other character’s more heroic than Uncle Tom?
2.) Miss Ophelia is a pivotal character in the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the character of Miss Ophelia, Stowe is able to reveal issues surrounding Northern attitudes towards blacks. At one point, St Clare addresses her saying "You loathe them as you would a snake or a toad, yet you are indignant at their wrongs. You would not have them abused; but you don't want to have anything to do with them yourselves."
Is St Clare correct? Does Miss Ophelia’s attitude change? If so, how? Are there parallels into today’s culture? Do we say one thing and act another way when it comes to relationships with those who are different from us?
3.) Morality plays a big role in this novel. One could go chapter by chapter through the novel and find bits and pieces of morality that could be discussed. In Chapter 20, we see a curious incidence of morality. St Clair the slave-holder, who while opposing slavery does nothing to stop it, purchases Topsy an abused child because he desires to rescue her. He gives her to Miss Ophelia to train. Miss Ophelia’s prejudice resurfaces; “I’ve always had a prejudice against Negroes,” said Miss Ophelia, “and it’s a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but, I didn’t think she knew it.”
Discuss other incidents in the novel where the moral principals of a character are over-turned by action (not all cases are negative – in Mr. Bird, we see the opposite).
4.) Redemption is another key element in the novel. Throughout the novel, Tom seeks the redemption of his ‘betters.’ In particular, Stowe tells of his repeated prayers for his good master St. Clare. His young pupil Eva also talks about the desire to redeem others in the following excerpt:
“Uncle Tom,” she said, one day, when she was reading to her friend, “I can understand why Jesus wanted to die for us.”
“I’ve felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery. I would die for them, Tom, if I could,” said the child, earnestly, laying her little thin hand on his.
How does the desire to redeem others motivate the characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
5.) As flawed as many find the sentimental style of the novel, one must not forget that Stowe was a brilliant draftsman when it came to character. She allowed her character’s to speak for themselves and was one of the first American novelists to write in dialogue. At the very beginning of the novel, she describes Mr. Haley by saying “His conversation was in free and easy defiance of Murray’s Grammar...”
Look at some of the major character’s in the novel (Haley, Chloe (and her easy misunderstanding and misappropriating words), St Clair, Miss Ophelia, Legree, Mrs. Bird).
How does Stowe create the character? What does the character’s use of language and their dialect say about them?
6.) Over the course of the story, we find that Tom has various talismans in his possession that are special to him. When Legree forces Tom to exchange his clothes for a field-hand uniform, he sorts through Tom’s pockets and finds a silk handkerchief, trinkets that Tom had made for Eva, and Tom’s Methodist hymnbook. Tom had transferred his Bible upon changing so that he could keep it near him. Later after a severe beating Legree is shown a dollar given to Uncle Tom by George and he is shown Eva’s curl.
What is the significance of these talisman’s?
7.) Stowe said that as a mother the trials of slave mothers were one of the issues that impressed her most deeply concerning the inhumanity of slavery. Perhaps, it is the call of motherhood that caused her to write so much about the children in the novel. Another possibility is that at the time Negroes were often considered less intelligent and more childlike than their white counterparts were.
Discuss the role of children in the novel. In particular, look at Eva, George Shelby, and Henrique. How do you think these children compare to and contrast with the adult and black characters in the novel?
To learn more about Uncle Tom's Cabin read: Stowe's Eliza and Uncle Tom.
