Grinstein directs his attention to the underlying psychological themes in Stowe's novel and their relationship to her history and character. Of particular interest is the report of a drama, Cleon, written by Stowe at age twelve or thirteen (1822), which contains many elements of similarity to the work published thirty years later. Complex developmental factors are associated with beating fantasies in general and, in particular, to those rarely occurring fantasies in which the individual beaten dies (as in both the early drama and the later novel). The death, before her own birth, of a sibling, after whom she was named, coupled with the death of her mother when