Uncle Tom's Cabin

So I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin--read it on my Kindle, by the way-- and I recommend it, the Kindle and the book. I know there's controversy surrounding the literary merits of Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I say give it a try. About the writing: it's didactic, and preaching is just plain awful writing. The stereotypes-- the racism-- and the Christianity made me very uncomfortable (being uncomfortable when reading fiction isn't necessarily a bad thing when it isn't the actual writing that's causing the discomfort!), and I understand that Harriet Beecher Stowe had a political agenda.

Writing a story with a political agenda has limitations, but Harriet Beecher Stowe probably didn't care because story telling can be an agent of social change which was her goal. Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin in the 21st Century is, of course, a different experience than reading it when it was first published in 1852-- though I wouldn't know this first-hand but I imagine that it was a different experience because there were people in 1852 who defended the institution of slavery-- but no human being today can possibly disagree with her message that slavery is bad, evil, wicked, reprehensible, and immoral except those who currently engage in the buying and selling of people.