Slavery Victims' Pain in Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Marrow of Tradition

Another odd aspect which was displayed in chapter 1 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is the description of Eliza Harris, who is Mrs. Shelby’s maid. She is described as having, “Rich, full, dark eyes, with its long lashes; the same ripples of silky black hair. The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek to a perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest possible fit, and set off to advantage her finely moulded shape”. (Stowe, Harriet Beecher.) Unfortunately, many don’t imagine slaves being well groomed, and dressed neatly. It may be believed that Stowe is giving a false racial stereotype here and trying to paint a different image of what slavery was like.

“You've always stood it out agin me: now, I'll conquer ye or kill ye!-one or t' other. I'll count every drop of blood there is in you, and take 'em, one by one, till ye give up!” (Uncle Tom's Cabin, page 467) This quote was said by an evil master named Simon Legree to Uncle Tom. From this one quote, I could feel the intense anger and hatred against slaves. Moreover, this is just coming from one person. Knowing that there were thousands of Simon Legree during the Civil War era can leave you flabbergasted.

After about nine chapters detailing his slave life, he says, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” (Douglass, 75) He then goes on to describe the turning point for him that sparked his quest for freedom. By structuring his narrative this way, he reveals both sides- how slavery broke him “in body, soul, and spirit” (Douglass, 73) and how it eventually “rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom” within him (Douglass, 80). In doing so, he gives the reader an insight into how he became himself, and reinforces the evils of slavery in the way it shapes a man’s life. Douglass’ use of diction and structure effectively persuades the reader of the barbarity and inhumanity that comes as a result of slavery.

The anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe was written at a time when slavery was a largely common practice among Americans. It not only helped lay the foundation for the Civil War but also contained many themes that publicized the evil of slavery to all people. The book contains themes such as the moral power of women, human right, and many more. The most important theme Stowe attempts to portray to readers is the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. She makes it very clear that she does not believe slavery and Christianity can coexist and that slavery is against all Christian morals. She believes no Christian should allow the existence or practice of slavery.

One of the things Harriet Beecher Stowe is known for in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is her many literary devices in her writing that have hidden meanings which emphasizes her abolitionist views. She is an effective author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin because her literary devices such as symbolism reiterate her very strong abolitionist views. Firstly, an example of Harriet Beecher Stowe using a character to help her anti-slavery views is during a dialogue between Evangeline and her father, Augustine St. Clare. Her father calls her over to show a statuette that he had bought just for her, and Eva tells him about her feelings that have been suppressed. She says to him, “‘O, that’s what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and to never have any pain,-never suffer anything,-not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain or sorrow, all their lives; … Papa, isn’t

Within his narrative, Douglass describes his past experiences with intense imagery, invoking the emotion of disgust from readers, appealing to pathos and urging society to abolish slavery. For instance, Douglass recounts when his own Aunt was savagely beaten and whipped by Captain Anthony, Douglass’ first master. Specifically, Douglass writes: “I have often awaked at the dawn of the day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood”(Douglass 15). In his description, Douglass uses phrases such as “heart-rending shrieks”, “naked back”, and “covered with blood” to synthesize a gruesome image of slavery,

In the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author conveys the evils and immoralities regarding slavery by portraying multiple accounts of abuse from slaveowners toward their slaves, humanizing the slaves, and ultimately slaves reaching out to christianity when they are hopeless.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative of his Life both endeavor to stir antislavery sentiment in predominantly white, proslavery readers. Each author uses a variety of literary tactics to persuade audiences that slavery is inhumane. Equiano uses vivid imagery and inserts personal experience to appeal to audiences, believing that a first-hand account of the varying traumas slaves encounter would affect change. Stowe relies on emotional connection between the readers and characters in her novel. By forcing her audience to have empathy for characters, thus forcing readers to confront the harsh realities of slavery, Stowe has the more effective approach to encouraging abolitionist sentiment in white readers.

Harriet Jacobs, a black woman who escapes slavery, illustrates in her biography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) that death is preferable to life as a slave due to the unbearable degradation of being regarded as property, the inevitable destruction of slave children’s innocence, and the emotional and physical pain inflicted by slave masters. Through numerous rhetorical strategies such as allusion, comparison, tone, irony, and paradoxical expression, she recounts her personal tragedies with brutal honesty. Jacobs’s purpose is to combat the deceptive positive portrayals of slavery spread by southern slave holders through revealing the true magnitude of its horrors. Her intended audience is uninvolved northerners, especially women, and she develops a personal and emotionally charged relationship with them.

Hughes’s descriptive writing prompts the reader to visualize strong images of oppression in America. The speaker provides an image of an extremely suppressed group of people in the statement: “I am the red man driven from the land” (Hughes 21). This simple phrase creates a picture of the Native Americans being driven from their lands and forced to live on undesirable land, and, as a result, this invites the reader to acknowledge their severe oppression. Similarly, the speaker mentions the people who were “torn from Black Africa’s strand” (Hughes 50). This generates an image of boats packed with a depressing amount of broken people, waiting to be sold into slavery. These visual examples portray the severity of the situation that many Americans found themselves in. These

     Published in the early 1850’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a huge impact on our nation and contributed to the tension over slavery. It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a woman who was involved in religious and feminist causes. Stowe’s influence on the northern states was remarkable. Her fictional novel about slave life of her current time has been thought to be one of the main things that led up to the Civil War. The purpose of writing it, as is often said, was to expose the evils of slavery to the North where many were unaware of just what went on in the rest of the country. The book was remarkably successful and sold 300,000 copies by the end of its first year. It is even rumored that

The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in the United States in 1852. The novel depicted slavery as a moral evil and was the cause of much controversy at the time and long after. Uncle Tom's Cabin outraged the South and received praise in the North. The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin was a major turning point for the United States which helped bring about the Civil War.

One was the best seller that captured all audiences, the other an unfiltered narrative telling of the slavery experience, although contrasting, both caused tensions that led to their popularity and why they are still read today. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a novel about a slave who embarks on a journey south and discovers how slavery is different in the disparate parts of the south. Meanwhile, Eliza, a mulatto enslaved woman runs away to ensure a better life for her son Harry by fleeing to Canada. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a narrative written by a former slave who became an abolitionist. Similarly to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it depicts the dehumanizing effects of slavery upon the master and likewise the slave. Both stories illustrate how misconceptions and faith in religion play a role in confusing as well as giving hope to the characters described. These two stories can be contrasted as you may contrast Martin Luther King and Malcolm X; one portrays a more moderate tone while the other gives us the full fledged exhibit of slavery. Although they are both unique and tell different stories of the lives of enslaved African Americans and their masters, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as well as Frederick Douglass’s The Narrative and Life of Frederick Douglas both capture the essence of slavery in the 1800s and give us two points of view of religion and the dehumanizing effects of slavery.

As many people say history was written by the victors, we need to remember there would be no victors without the struggle and turmoil of those that lost. This is what Harriet Beecher Stowe’s compelling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin has taught us in regards to the war on slavery. In the midst of the 1800’s, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to address the various issues regarding race during this century. Throughout her novel, readers learn the lives of slaves, slave masters, and their families, which leads to the understanding of a unique lifestyle among the characters. As her novel is important in today’s society, it made an even greater impact during the nineteenth century as it portrays the ideology of the Civil War and the abolitionists.

It is extremely difficult for the modern reader to understand and appreciate Uncle Tom’s Cabin because Harriet Beecher Stowe was writing for an audience very different from us. We don’t share the cultural values and myths of Stowe’s time, so her novel doesn’t affect us the way it affected its original readers. For this reason, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been heavily scrutinized by the modern critic. However, the aspects of the novel that are criticized now are the same aspects that held so much appeal for its original audience.