In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe placed her views and her personal influences into the framework of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She was "one of the most important women of modern times" (Longford 178), and the "author of the most widely read and controversial novel written in the 19th century" (Benet 1022). Named one of the most contributing reasons to the Civil War, President Lincoln agreed by saying " `So this is the little lady who made this big war' " (Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin: Bloom's Notes 8). Uncle Tom's Cabin was also described by John William Deforest as "The Great American Novel" (8), and although attacked vigorously by the slave-holding South, the book proved immensely popular and was translated into at least twenty-three languages (8).

Uncle Tom's Cabin, namely a historical fiction novel, limns the reader with the plight of slaves in this country in the mid-nineteenth century. The story begins in Kentucky where a...