Critical Commentary

For this section of the assignment, I chose two different articles to summarize. One of the articles was a short poem on page 528, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The main point of this poem is that Stowe, a brave woman, told a story that ended up opening everyone’s eyes and helped the country come to the realization of the cruelty that was happening around them. The author described her as speaking for “consciences that long had slept,” meaning she spoke for those who couldn’t bring themselves to stand up against slavery. Dunbar also stated, “Command and prophecy were in the tone” (Dunbar, 528) describing Stowe’s ability to bring in religious views into the book. He ended by describing her book as being the catalyst to the race to freedom and what brought Stowe to fame. This author’s interpretation of Stowe’s novel added to my understanding of the text because of how he was able to summarize all the main ideas/goals of Uncle Tom’s Cabin into just a few lines. He described Stowe as being able to open the world to the wrongs that were not as obvious as before, referring to the dehumanization that was taking place throughout the novel. I agree with every part of Dunbar’s interpretation of the text because he did an excellent job summarizing Stowe’s ultimate goal of writing and publishing Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The second article I chose is on page 527-528 and was written by Helen Gray Cone. Cone described Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a “great antislavery novel.”  She felt that it awoke a deep, responsive thrill in the repressed heart of the north.  The author of this article described the story as a breakthrough for dehumanization not just for slaves, but also for women. She thought it was crazy that an American book that was the work of a lady could go so far in that day and age. I agree with Cone’s interpretation of what she thought the novel did for the country because she was correct by saying it had a significant impact on those who were sitting and doing nothing in the north. Her interpretation helped me understand how widely spread this book had become by stating, “Ten thousand copies were sold in a few days; over three hundred thousand in a year; eight power-presses were kept running day and night to supply the continual demand” (Cone, 527). This article did a great job criticizing Stowe's novel and describing the history-changing events that it lead to.