Death as the Change Agent in Uncle Tom's Cabin

In Jane P. Tompkins essay “Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Politics of Literary History” she discusses the impact that little Eva’s death in the “transformation of stories circulating in the culture at large” (Stowe 507). Tompkins attributes Eva’s ability to do so partly to the typological structure Stowe uses in the novel. The structure, heavily reliant upon the prefigured symbols of the Bible, allows Eva to become the Christ-like figure by whom every other character’s life if affected. But in reading Tompkins’ essay, what she fails to address, and what I hope to address in mine, is how the death of characters, other than Eva, serves as agents of change within the story, and history, in its entirety. This essay will discuss the possible death of George the slave, and the actual death of Tom and Legree's mother in terms of how they change the characters close to their deaths, and moreover, how they impact the course of the novel and the course of history.