How Uncle Tom’s Cabin drew on The Gospels
A documented line of influence: Harriet Beecher Stowe demonstrably engaged Matthew’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Gospels
Matthew · c. 85
BibleThe influenced
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe · 1852
The Age of the NovelRelevance
8/10
On Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s page
- Tom's only book is the one standing behind this one — he reads nothing but the New Testament, and lives by it
- Stowe built her whole moral case on Gospel doctrine: Christian love as the answer to slavery, Tom as a deliberate Christ-figure
- Knowing these chapters first lets you see exactly which scenes Stowe is quoting and which sufferings she's mapping onto her hero
On The Gospels’s page
- Stowe's novel is, at bottom, the Gospel preached as fiction — Christian love set against slavery
- Uncle Tom owns and reads only the New Testament, patterning his whole life on the Jesus of these pages
- Read these first and Uncle Tom's Cabin reveals itself as a deliberate Christ-figure built straight from Matthew and John