Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is “one of the most famous books in the world” she is considered to be the woman that started the civil war. This book presents Anti-slavery ideas using Religion, Maternity and the idea of Gender Roles to promote the idea of Anti-Slavery. Throughout Uncle Tom’s Cabin there are “slave problems”,how slavery destroys and crumble families by splitting apart mother and child along with husband and wive.Stowe argues that these slavery brings out the femininity in a man, but it could be thought of the other way? In society Men and Women are given different characteristics that define the way they are suppose to act and how they appear internally and physically. Women are meant to have a feminine persona …show more content…
Stowe uses a few characters to make her point valid. One of these characters is Mrs.Shelby. Mrs.Shelby from the start is the ideal women, woman with strong religious ideals who uses her moral influence over her husband and her household. Mrs.Shelby fight’s to keep Harry,Eliza’s son, and Tom by using her influence over her husband, "Why not make a pecuniary sacrifice? I 'm willing to bear my part of the inconvenience. O, Mr. Shelby, I have tried--tried most faithfully, as a Christian woman should--to do my duty to these poor, simple, dependent creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched over them, and know all their little cares and joys, for years; and how can I ever hold up my head again among them, if, for the sake of a little paltry gain, we sell such a faithful, excellent, confiding creature as poor Tom, and tear from him in a moment all we have taught him to love and value?...(Stowe, Harriet Beecher, and Alfred Kazin. "Showing The Feelings Of Living Property On Changing Owners." Uncle Tom 's Cabin. Toronto: Bantam, 1981. 37. Print.)” I see this part as her assuming a form of masculinity. Mrs.Shelby starts to put her foot down trying make her opinion be heard. She tries to push her influence through her husband. She fights for Elisa and her child and that shows something that wasn’t really common among most whites at the time. Mrs.Shelby the continues to show us her view on slavery, “This is God 's curse on slavery!--a bitter, bitter,
At the very beginning of the book, Stowe almost immediately introduces this idea of slavery and it how it morally changes someone in a negative way. The very first scene of the book causes the reader to be touched emotionally, by expressing the struggle that a young slave mother, Eliza, went through. Her son, Harry, was about to be traded by the slave owner, Mr.Shelby (pg. 15), which meant that her family would have been split up and separated from each other forever. Even though this story takes place in Kentucky, where slavery was more mild than some regions more down south, in the terms of how harsh the slave owners treated their slaves, it was still slavery and it was definitely not a perfect kinship between the slave and the master that some thought it up to be. Furthermore, Mr.Shelby was put in a predicament to either sell some of his slaves to make money, or keep them and try to scavenge for money. In that situation, the choice seemed fairly obvious and Mr.Shelby decided to sell Harry and Uncle Tom, so that his family can continue to survive on the plantation(pg. 46). However, since he was the one who made the decision, it perceived him to be the bad guy, even though he had treated his slaves with such care in the past. He would have been ultimately splitting up their family, if they would have not run away (ch. 6). Through these first couple of chapters Stowe incorporates this situation to show how slave owners, even the less intense ones, were still blinded to the morally wrong and morally degrading actions that they were committing. By treating slaves as property, the effects of the slave owner’s actions could be clearly seen, but yet there was still no positive change that resulted in the slaves becoming less materialized.
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
Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of the most influential writers from the 19th century. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” brings up many ideals about history and culture. Stowe supports ideals of American exceptionalism such as slavery, christianity, and equality through earlier periods in American history. American identity has been created and explored in literature ranging from the days of the conquistadores and the early settlers to the middle of the nineteenth century. White Americans have had greater opportunities than anyone else since the beginning of time. This may seem racist, but it is the truth. In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the slave owners were all white. The slaves were African American. African-Americans weren’t allowed to own property, have their
Harriet Beacher Stowe is known for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin the reader follows several different stories of female slaves who are either threatened with separation from their child or who are separated. Through this variety of perspectives, Stowe argues the emotional damages of this practice. She uses pathos to convince the reader of her argument through specific descriptions of the women who loose their children. One
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was by no means a factual book. In fact, most, if not all of the events were completely made up. How then can a completely fictional book change the lives of so many? It comes from the power of Stowe’s rhetoric in conjunction with her target audience. Stowe was a white Christian female. She believed slavery was completely wrong and wanted to make a change. But how could she? She was a woman after all and during that time period women simply did not effect change through politics. According to Susan Harris, a respected Stowe researcher, “The men are not evil, but they are involved in the public world” (Harris). However influencing politics was the only way things were going to change and Stowe knew this. She henceforth targeted the white Christian mothers because they in turn could influence their men to make changes in the male dominant society of politics. A perfect method by which to achieve a change in slavery laws indirectly. Stowe especially used the power of sentimentalism to connect with her audience. She did not need facts or evidence, all she needed to effect change in the hearts of the women was a general feel for the subject. The women of that day were very sensitive and yet very powerful in the home. Stowe capitalized on this by using the Christ figures of Tom and Eva and their experiences during the slavery era to evoke a feeling of compassion for them in her audience. By using more emotion and targeting the human aspect of
In” Uncle Tom's Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe defines slavery as inhumane and unjust, in her book she provides real life stories of how faith, sacrifice, and cruelty, come together to demonstrate a real life vision of the terrible systems of slavery and how they affected many people.
While Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin overtly deals with the wrongs of slavery from a Christian standpoint, there is a subtle yet strong emphasis on the moral and physical strength of women. Eliza, Eva, Aunt Chloe, and Mrs. Shelby all exhibit remarkable power and understanding of good over evil in ways that most of the male characters in Stowe’s novel. Even Mrs. St. Claire, who is ill throughout most of the book, proves later that she was always physically in control of her actions, however immoral they were. This emotional strength, when compared with the strength of the male characters, shows a belief in women as equals to men (if not more so) uncommon to 19th century literature.
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.
For this essay I will be analyzing the role of women in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the 19th century it was common for the man to be the head of the house while the women sat back and did all the cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children. However, when looking at the main and minor characters in the novel, the audience just sees one perspective of these women until digging deeper and realize they all have a specific purpose that is just not as obvious. It also exercises the sense of good and evil in female roles and encourages the use of wisdom and power as a force for social change. Stowe is able to create a vast assortment of female individuals to cover all the different viewpoints women could have in this time period. This novel exemplifies how important children are to women, how gender roles are established, how stereotypical women’s personalities are, and finally how they influence their morals on their family.
There were a lot of characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Generally, men in this book, like Mr. Shelby and Mr. Bird, had the power to make the main decision. Mr. Shelby controlled the economy of his family while Mr. Bird could influence Political laws. However, they both respect their wives. The women characters created by Stowe such as Mrs. Shelby and Mrs. Bird, they were both Christians and the love and tolerance among them were obvious. In this novel, women had the moral superiority.
As previously mentioned, Stowe composed Uncle Tom’s Cabin to express the various views of slavery, and how it impacted the lives of those affected by this lifestyle. Growing up in this century, Stowe found the institution of slavery to be corrupt, with “the country requiring her complicity in a system she thought was unjust and immoral” (Uncle Tom’s Cabin). As Stowe did not believe in the Fugitive Slave Law—which required everyone to aid in the capture of fugitive slaves—she chose to hide runaway slaves, and her family promoted her drive to aid those in need. Stowe accomplished this feat through housing, feeding, and smuggling slaves to legal freedom in Canada, because it was the Christian thing to do.
Stowe pictured the women as free like Eliza. When Eliza heard about the thing which Mr.Shelby is planning to sell Harry
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a novel written in times of unrest where slavery was a controversial topic and women 's rights were still suffering. Uncle Tom’s Cabin showed the grim reality of slavery and showed the importance for women to gain a societal role beyond the domestic domain. The reading contains a number of major characters throughout the novel. The two most notable characters we will discuss is Mrs. Shelby and Marie St. Clare. Throughout this paper we will compare and contrast these two characters and give specific examples to illustrate the similarities and differences between these two unique individuals.
When hearing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the audience is led to believe it’s a story about a man and his cabin, but once encapsulated it becomes evident that it is about much more. Uncle Tom’s Cabin shows both sides of slavery. On one hand there were the kind slave owners and then there were those that saw slaves as “property” as opposed to people. Although Stowe’s novel shows the dominance of men, she uses one key element that is every man’s weakness: a woman.
Through the character of Mrs. Shelby, Stowe seems to use her opposition against slavery the most. Mrs. Shelby's character realizes that slavery is unfair, unjust, and most of all unchristian. This theme of opposition of slavery can be compared to that of Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist in early American history. Thoreau was the