Exploring themes of oppression in Harriet Beecher Stowe's abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the author attempts to draw an analogy between the novel's subject and contemporary struggles, especially feminism. She explains why Lincoln said the novel caused the Civil War, and discusses Stowe's Christian theology, political views and personal life and their relationship with the novel's content. Further, she argues the importance of the book's literary realism, and why the hero of the novel came to be regarded as more than just an Uncle Tom.
