Page "The Minister's Wooing" Paragraph 1

With its intense focus upon the history, customs, and mannerisms of New England, The Minister's Wooing is one sense an example of the local color writing that proliferated in late 19th century.

However, by highlighting the issue of slavery, this time in the north, The Minister's Wooing also represents a continuation of Stowe's earlier anti-slavery novels.

Finally, the work serves as a critique of Calvinism, written from the perspective of an individual deeply familiar with the theological system.

Stowe's father was the well-known Calvinist minister Lyman Beecher, and Stowe based many aspects of the novel upon events in the lives of herself and her older sister Catharine's life.

Throughout the novel, Stowe portrays the reaction of different personality types to the pressures of Calvinist principles, illustrating in this manner what she perceives as Calvinism's strengths and weaknesses.

In particular, responding to the untimely death of her sister's fiancé and the death of two of her own children, Stowe addresses the issue of predestination, the idea that individuals were either " saved " or " damned ," and only the elect would go to heaven.