Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

     One thing I found interesting about this novel was how Stowe often presented the women in the novel as the moral voice.  While the men were the powerful and autonomous ones out doing business, the women were at home with the slaves, and began to see the humanity in them.  For example, when Mr. Shelby decides to sell Tom and Harry, Mrs. Shelby reminds her husband of his promise to set Tom free and her own promise to Eliza that Harry would stay.  She then goes on to say that slavery is a sin--here Stowe is certainly not leaving her convictions in question for the reader.  She clearly has an agenda, and isn't concerned with talking around the matter, rather choosing to get right down to it.  Stowe takes on this blunt tone throughout the novel, which is effective in getting her point across for me, someone that agrees with her, but as I was reading, at times I wondered if her writing was as effective for those who didn't share her convictions.