Let me first say, that overall, I loved Uncle Tom's Cabin. Tom's journey home to heaven was both heartbreaking and satisfying. We saw Eliza and her family make it to freedom in Canada. Everyone, in their own respectable way, was freed from their bondage. The book should have ended right... right there.
But it didn't.
Why, oh why, Harriet, must you insist on tying up every last loose end? In my opinion, this was an appalling ending to a nearly perfect book. The super happy ending does not match up with the tone of the rest of the story. Stowe's entire novel focuses upon how families are torn apart by slavery. Then, in the last few chapters of her novel, she makes it seem fairly easy for families to be reunited.
I couldn't stomach such an unrealistic ending to a book that tried very hard to be realistic. I think the novel would have had a much more powerful ending if all the reunions were left out. She should have cut off the last two chapters of her book. We had Eliza and her family safe and sound in Canada. Sure, bad things happened along the way, they were separated from their family members, but in the end, they had each other.
The reunions are far too random. It just so happens that these people are on the same boat as young Master George? It just so happens that they get placed near each other in the ship? It just so happens that they become acquaintances and just so happen to mention certain commonalities?
That's four too many just so happens. I can stomach one of them, perhaps, but the rest is far too unlikely. Reality can only be suspended so many times before people reject certain aspects of a narrative.
The ending was too much. I wish she would have left it alone.
WC: 314
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