Baldwin vs. Stowe

“Everybody’s Protest Novel,” was a critique written in 1955 by James Baldwin on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It's obvious from the start of the critique that Baldwin doesn’t think very much of the novel at all. He questions the need for this story to become a novel instead of being on a pamphlet- Baldwin wrote, “…she was not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer.” (496) These are harsh words for a book that some have praised highly, including Edmund Wilson, former editor of Vanity Fair and writer for the New Yorker. Jane Tompkins, who wrote an accompanying critique in the Norton edition of the novel, called the book a "classic." In order to get to the root of these discrepancies, it’s important to research the backgrounds of both Baldwin and Stowe. Both grew up extremely religious, which accounts for the religious theme of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as well as Baldwin's response.