Critical Commentary (pages 532-595)

I chose Everybody's Protest Novel by James Baldwin pages 532-539. Baldwin's short essay is criticizing Stowe and the characters in her book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Bladwin says that Uncle Tom's Cabin is an example of a protest novel. A protest novel meaning "a work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender,race is dramatized by it's effect on the characters". Like in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Baldwin also points out a few theme's Stowe uses in her novel. Like whites are superior to blacks and a religious theme. Baldwin seems to make the point that Uncle Tom's Cabin is motivated mostly by fear, more than understanding what the slaves were going through in there times. I both agree and disagree with James Baldwin. I think Stowe does have a big focus on the whole feelings of fear, religious but not entirely what the whole novel is about. I really feel it's about what the slaves went through to gain there freedom and what they dealt with with no equality. There was a big theme of religion throughout the novel I agree with that. James Baldwin stated a lot of things that are dehumanizing about Uncle Tom's Cabin. That added to the understanding of it. "The inability to feel;the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart;and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty, Uncle Tom's Cabin-like it's multitudinous, hard boiled descendants-is a catalog of violence"(Baldwin 533). That statement seems dehumanizing to me. People should not fear there lives. everyone has the ability to feel. Uncle Tom's Cabin does have violence, but I disagree that Stowe was just writing this novel to give a message just about the violence itself like Baldwin makes it seem. Baldwin also states "Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very bad novel" (Baldwin 533). And I also disagree witht that statement, and I'm sure anyone who has read Uncle Tom's Cabin would also disagree with that statement as well.