Editing Uncle Tom's Cabin (section)

===Literary theories===

Over the years scholars have postulated a number of theories about what Stowe was trying to say with the novel (aside from the major theme of condemning slavery). For example, as an ardent Christian and active abolitionist, Stowe placed many of her religious beliefs into the novel.{{sfn|Smylie|1995|pp=165–167}} Some scholars have stated that Stowe saw her novel as offering a solution to the moral and political dilemma that troubled many slavery opponents: whether engaging in prohibited behavior was justified in opposing evil. Was the use of violence to oppose the violence of slavery and the breaking of proslavery laws morally defensible?{{sfn|Bellin|1993|p=277}} Which of Stowe's characters should be emulated, the passive Uncle Tom or the defiant George Harris?{{sfn|Bellin|1993|p=275}} Stowe's solution was similar to [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]'s: God's will would be followed if each person sincerely examined his principles and acted on them.{{sfn|Bellin|1993|p=290}}

Scholars have also seen the novel as expressing the values and ideas of the [[Free Soil|Free Will Movement]].{{sfn|Grant|1998|pp=430–431}} In this view, the character of George Harris embodies the principles of free labor, and the complex character of Ophelia represents those Northerners who condoned compromise with slavery. In contrast to Ophelia is Dinah, who operates on passion. During the course of the novel Ophelia is transformed, just as the [[U.S. Republican Party|Republican Party]] (three years later) proclaimed that the North must transform itself and stand up for its antislavery principles.{{sfn|Grant|1998|pp=433–436}}

[[Feminist theory]] can also be seen at play in Stowe's book, with the novel as a critique of the [[patriarchal]] nature of slavery.{{sfn|Riss|1994|p= 525}} For Stowe, blood relations rather than paternalistic relations between masters and slaves formed the basis of families. Moreover, Stowe viewed national solidarity as an extension of a person's family, thus feelings of nationality stemmed from possessing a shared race. Consequently, she advocated African colonization for freed slaves and not amalgamation into American society.{{sfn|Powell|2021|pp=107–108}}

The book has also been seen as an attempt to redefine [[masculinity]] as a necessary step toward the abolition of slavery.{{sfn|Wolff|1995|pp=599–600}} In this view, abolitionists had begun to resist the vision of aggressive and dominant men that the conquest and colonization of the early 19th century had fostered. To change the notion of manhood so that men could oppose slavery without jeopardizing their self-image or their standing in society, some abolitionists drew on principles of [[women's suffrage]] and Christianity as well as passivism, and praised men for cooperation, compassion, and civic spirit. Others within the abolitionist movement argued for conventional, aggressive masculine action. All the men in Stowe's novel are representations of either one kind of man or the other.{{sfn|Wolff|1995|p=610}}