Social Protest Novels

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the techniques used in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and Remarque's novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front", to protest the social conditions they were writing about. Both authors use the language and the metaphors of their time to help emphasize their point. Stowe also used narration, commentary, and poetry to make her anti-slavery statement, whereas Remarque relied heavily on graphic depictions to make his anti-war statement. To help determine the effectiveness of the novels' social protest, the paper compares the two novels to David Halberstam's journalistic account of the Vietnam War.

From the Paper:

"There is a single problem common to Uncle Tom's Cabin and All Quiet on the Western Front, despite the works' having been created in different centuries on different continents and nominally about different subjects. The single, common problem is this: the valuation of one group of human beings by another, with that valuation coming in lower for the group being valued."

More papers on Social Protest Novels:

• Analytical Essay # 31578 : "Uncle Tom's Cabin", Racism and Feminism"
• Analytical Essay # 44851 : "The Jungle"
• Analytical Essay # 64580 : "Octopus"

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