Uncle Tom's Cabin--like its multitudinous, hard-boiled descendants--is a catalogue of violence. This is explained by the nature of Mrs. Stowe's subject matter, her laudable determination to flinch from nothing in presenting the complete picture; an explanation which falters only if we pause to ask whether or not her picture is indeed complete; and what constriction or failure of perception forced her to so depend on the description of brutality--unmotivated, senseless--and to leave unanswered and unnoticed the only important question: what it was, after all, that moved her people to such deeds.