Writing Homework Help

Discussion

This is the answer I found on the web, we can’t copy it but we can at least look at it to learn.

This is a difficult and complicated question. Uncle Tom’s Cabin  is possibly the most famous novel ever written about slavery, prompting  Lincoln to remark, when he met Stowe: “So you’re the little lady that  started this big war.” The remark is apocryphal but does indicate the  impact and popularity of the book. Regarding the question, the book is  not about a slave rebellion, per se. One of the main plot points does  concern Eliza and her son escaping after she learns they’re to be sold.  The perils and rewards of either rebellion or escape are considerable  and something that any slave must have taken into consideration. Do they  risk their life for a shot at freedom?

Whether the reader or student finds these rebellions inspiring or as  “isolated instances in a sea of pain” is a subjective question for the  historian and one that can, perhaps, never truly be answered. It should  also be pointed out that Stowe’s novel is a work of fiction  and is not based of any specific incidents, so cannot be relied on as a  work of history. As such, it cannot really be compared with Nat  Turner’s rebellion in 1831, which resulted in multiple deaths, including  Turner’s. It was the source for the fictional The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron. Certainly it was far more consequential and horrifying—for the slave-owners—than any incidents in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

In terms of the final part of the question, this is partly an opinion  question and partly a question of research. There are still people  today who believe slavery had some redeeming qualities and buy into the  myth of the good slave owner. Simply reading any of the many slave  narratives, though, like those by Frederick Douglass, Booker T.  Washington, or Harriet Jacobs, will quickly disprove this.