As she lies on her deathbed, in chapter 26 of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, little Eva tells the servants of the house who have gathered around to her: "You must remember that each of you can become an angel" (418). In this chapter and the previous one, Eve has actively worked to transform the people around her into "angels", here understood as someone who is saved by God. In chapters 33 and 34 of Stowe's book, Tom works similarly, if more silently, to transform the other slaves on Simon Legree's plantation into "angels." internally, they reveal Stowe's Methodist theology, a theology that rejects the predestination of earlier American Christianity. In Stowe's theology "everyone" of people can be saved; God's love is universal. Original sin still exists, but now the individual is given the control to escape this sin by embracing the love of God. At the heart of the theology and resulting morality that Tom and Eva highlight, is a warm and knowable God, who is knowable through love and the heart. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Eve is the most explicit person in explaining the dynamic between God and his people. He explains this by asking Topsy, "don't you know that Jesus loves everyone equally? He's willing to love you as much as me" (412). Earlier in the book Tom had asked a similar question to a downtrodden woman on the boat with him: "Didn't anyone ever tell you how the Lord Jesus loved you and died for you?" (324). God offers this love to all, but it can only be claimed by loving God in return. Eve implores the people around her to "pray every day" (419) so that they can find God as she did. The way Tom and Eva lead others to see this caring God is by acting in the same way. like God? by loving the people around them the same way Jesus loved them. When Eve gathers all the servants together, in an attempt to convince them all to become "angels", the first thing she says is: "I have sent you all to call, my dear friends, because I love you. I love you all" (418). Like Jesus, Eve goes beyond the simple story of love, she acts on this love by giving each servant a lock of her hair she symbolically gives herself (her hair). Although Tom is less explicit in his vocalization of love, he is somewhat more evident than Eva in the way he expresses this love. Tom, "at the risk of all he might suffer, [stepped] forward again and put all the cotton from his sack into the woman's" (503) By giving up his own cotton, Tom shows a willingness to suffer at the end of the day, when the cotton is weighed, so that the woman, Emmeline, does not have to. Tom's reckless willingness to suffer so that others do not have to makes clear the similarity between the love that Tom and Eva give and the love that God, through Jesus, gives. When Tom and Eva give in this way, they inspire the people around them to give too. During the first months spent at home St. Clare, Topsy does nothing but transform everything into something of her own. Miss Ophelia tells how Topsy stole her "bonnet seal and chopped it up to make doll jackets!" (407). But then Eva says to Topsy something Topsy has never heard before: "Oh, Topsy, poor child, I love you" (409). Topsy begins to cry and in the following days immediately shows a desire to reciprocate to Eva. A few days later Topsy brings flowers from the garden for Eva, and Eva says to her mother: "You see, mother, I knewthat poor Topsy wanted to do something for me" (414). It seems that once one sees that the world can be a loving place, people like Topsy can identify a loving force behind that world. Even watching Eva deal with Topsy, Miss Ophelia tells Topsy that, "I learned something about the love of Christ from her" (432). This loving force is therefore transformative. Eve tells Topsy that if Topsy is able to love God, "He will help you to be good." (410).Before Eve causes this change in Topsy, Topsy, when asked why she behaves so badly, says, "She expects it to be my evil heart" (408). Eve revealed his love to her, it is certain that her heart has also changed. God's grace transforms individuals from the inside out, but in Methodist theology the individual can seek God by learning to love These acts d Love becomes the central element of Methodist theology and is much less important than these acts of the heart. Miss Opelia attempts to convert Topsy by teaching her from the Bible, she says, “I have taught and taught; pagan child” (408). The Bible is certainly not rejected as a source of truth? Tom draws great guarantees from the Bible, but the Gospel and training in the Gospel are not really useful for saving people these conversion chapters. It is people like Eve and Tom who are educated in the way of the heart, who are able to help people reach God. Eve, the one who is able to show others such love, first learned the 'love in her own family while her mother is not the nurturing mother she might be hoped for, her father fills the caring role. Clare loves Eva so much that she falls into lifeless despondency when Eva dies, in the same way, she says. to Tom how she learned love in her childhood with a mother who raised her and allowed her to "play hide and seek, under the orange trees, with my brothers and sisters" (516). These days Cassy recalls that she “loved God and prayer” (522). The love of family is the essential source of love in Stowe's theology. When Saint Clare finally achieves peace with God, she is accompanied by the image of her caring mother before him (456). But just as compelling as these examples of a family giving someone access to love, are those examples where a lack of family deprives someone of the understanding of love. Topsy's inability to love stems from her belief that "nobody can love niggers." Moments later, Eva implies that this belief makes sense given that Topsy has never had "no father, no mother, no friends" (409). Although Cassy understood love in the past, she lost it when she lost her family. It is at the moment her children are sold that she, first, “cursed God and man” (519). She loses her love for God and humanity because she is stripped of the very source of this love. Cassy's situation highlights the important point that just as an individual can gain grace in the eyes of God, so can they lose it. But the situation highlights the larger fact that Cassy's source of love was her family. Much of Stowe's novel is seen as a scathing attack on slavery, but Stowe is stronger in condemning slavery because of its strength in breaking up families. Cassy's story of her family's breakup is one of the most vividly told. She tells of how her master teased her every day, saying, "'if you don't behave sensibly, I will sell both children, where you will never see them again'" (518). Let's see Stowe narrate these.
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