Uncle Tom's Cabin

Stowe's original subtitle for Uncle Tom's Cabin was "The Man Who was a Thing"; she meant it ironically, of course, because Tom refuses to be made a "thing." His inaction is this refusal; his passivity is love — not liking, for he does not like Legree and does not pretend to; not admiration or attraction, for Tom like the rest of us cannot freely give or withhold these things; but love in the sense that the New Testament defines it: "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (see I Corinthians, 13: 1–13). Love is the recognition of the human spirit in one human being by another human being; it is the antithesis of materialism and of slavery. Tom's courage, his strength, and his heroism are all based in the Christian love — the good — that he freely chooses (as, he believes, God freely chooses him) throughout the book.