Uncle Toms Cabin Analysis

Stowe presents slavery in the only way she knows how, by using the facts. Several sources of other works in American literature contrast on to how Stowe presents slavery in her novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The elements of slavery are driven through the reflections of theme, characterization, and setting to show that the way slavery is presented is not contradicting.

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

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a slavery novel written by Harriet Breecher Stowe. The book begins with Arthur Shelby, a “kind” slave owner and Tom’s master who resides in Kentucky. He is facing the loss of his farm because he has debts. Even though Mr. Shelby and his wife Emily have a close by connection with their slaves, Arthur decides to raise funds by selling two of his slaves which are Uncle Tom and Harry. Uncle Tom is a man with a wife and children, and he is about middle aged, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby’s servant Eliza, are going to be sold to a slave trader. Emily is not okay with the idea of Harry being sold because she has promised

The novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe is an anti-slavery novel that changed how Americans viewed treating people as property. The book How to Read Literature Like a Professor provides 27 insightful chapters on how to find a deeper meaning in any given novel. The topics I chose to use to analyze Uncle Tom’s Cabin are chapter twelve, “Is That Symbolism?”, chapter fourteen, “Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too” and chapter six, “The Bible”.

The story opens on a Kentucky ranch, home to the kind and venerated Uncle Tom, and the junior Eliza and her tyke. The story has a few significant characters, yet bases on Tom and Eliza. The managers of the homestead owe cash to a slave dealer, and are compelled to offer Tom and Eliza's child. "Mas'r" George, the child of the ranch's managers, is alarmed at the offering of Tom. Eliza hears the news the prior night the merchant is to come, and she escapes the ranch with her tyke, aiming to discover refuge in Canada and potentially to rejoin with her spouse. Tom takes this conceivably awful unforeseen development vigorously, however without insubordination.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was valuable because it opened the eyes of American citizens to the harsh reality of slavery and proved its need for abolishment. Harriet Beecher Stowe proved the wrongness and cruelty of many southern slave owners by mentioning the splitting up of slave families in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the beginning of the book, Stowe developed the nasty and feelingless character of Mr. Haley, a slave trader. He decided to buy Harry from Mr. Shelby and wanted to separate the young child from his mother without considering the impact it would have on their family. Stowe also explored the cruelty of slavery in the scene where Simon Legree beat Uncle Tom to death. She used Legree as an example for many southern slave owners who brutally acted the same way in real life. Stowe was very bothered by the fact that slave owners were willing to kill their own slaves and was able to share her hostile feelings with many others with her book. Through Stowe’s examples of family separation and death, she was able to show Americans how ruthless some slave owners could truly be. This compelled both Northerners and Southerners to fight for the abolishment of slavery.

Harriett Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin revolves around the lives of several Negro slaves and the struggles they face. The novel, told in a third person point of view is an incredibly well composed novel with a well-rounded; sympathetical feel. Stowe amazingly starts the novel with an abrupt scene where two slave owners are in the process of making a transaction; later in the novel you realize that that very moment was the beginning of what would bring Eliza much misery. In that very scene, Mr. Shelby makes a deal with Mr. Haley to sell Harry (Eliza’s son) and Uncle Tom. Although Mr. Shelby loves and respects his slaves he is forced into an inhumane deal because of his financial debt to Mr. Haley. The novel runs through the lives of several slaves a little boy Harry, his mother, Eliza, his father, George Harris, and Uncle Tom these of which are the most vital to the story line.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an American Literature that showed a major turning point in humanity at the time. Eliza and George Harris, who are the main two characters end up escaping from a slave owner in Kentucky, from the help of another slave owner. Only people with the understanding of how deep, and crazed slavery was in the south during the 1850’s would understand how important a scenario like that is. The point is served, was a point that many died, march, fought, and killed for. It served a point that many starved, cried and sacrificed for and wasn’t even successful. It served a

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a story that described the real life plight of an American Slave. Kentucky farmer George Shelby amassed enormous debts and faces the possibility of losing everything he owns. To settle his debts he makes the decision to sell two of his slaves, Uncle Tom and Eliza’s son Harry. Eliza is a young, beautiful quadroon girl who George Shelby’s wife took on as a daughter. Eliza overhears a conversation between George Shelby and his wife concerning the impending sale of her precious son Harry, and Uncle Tom. Eliza warns Uncle Tom to take heed and flee to the north in the hopes of attaining freedom in Canada with her son and husband George. Haley, the slave owner who attempted to purchase her son

Mr Shelby the original owner of Uncle Tom treated their slaves humanely and by my perspective he and his wife seem attached to his slaves and was repulsed when haley the slave trader appeared to collects his debt. The characters have different feelings about the society they live in, but they do share one common belief which is the belief that they cannot change things. Stowe shows how this feeling of helplessness only strengthens slavery’s grip on society. Stowe deeply describes how the prejudice and separation created by society’s public sphere, when accepted and unchallenged, tragically deny a domestic, happy home life. In her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe uses kitchen imagery to demonstrate to northern white female readers that the patriarchal institution of slavery which are deeply ingrained in America’s belief system, accepted by Southern slave owners.

As the protagonist of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe uses Tom to make a point not just about the inhumanity which Tom is a product of, but of the model Christian who is submissive. Stowe looks to the obedient slave to set an example of a model Christian. The passive, submissive slave has the same faith in his or her master as the good Christian should: thus, Tom proves to be both a good slave and a good Christian. It then becomes the responsibility of the master to raise his or her slaves as they would a child, instilling in them Christian virtues, which consequently stifles the desire to be free. This parallel is seen in a discussion between Eliza and her husband George, "Well,' said Eliza mournfully, 'I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn't be a good Christian." (16) Her husband agrees: in the case of a kind master it makes sense for a slave to obey. It is significant that George agrees with Eliza, it is his tyrannical master which prompts his escape. Recognizing the benefits of masters like the Shelbys makes George's agreement with Eliza

Prior to Stowe’s work, Abolitionists in the North had begun to rally against slavery and southern society. Although the anti-slavery movement had begun, Stowe granted her readers exclusive insight of the cruelty of slavery. Readers learned of the protagonist Tom, and how he was torn away from his wife and children to work as a slave on a southern plantation. Stowe created the fictional Tom to be a perfect slave, he was obedient and hardworking, readers would rapidly love and sympathize with the character. When Tom is brutally beaten, whipped, and eventually killed unjustly, the readers became outraged.

Stowe shows Tom’s resilience and Christian faith being built up with love from the St. Clare’s plantation and attempted to be broken down by Simon Legree. The idea that, blacks can be humane if taught to be humane is something that she hopes the reader will understand. Throughout the book her feminist viewpoint is obvious with how she treats her female characters. Characters like Mrs. Shelby, Miss Ophelia, Eva, and Eliza act as individuals, but also for their family. Their characters encompass a wide variety of traits that women do not often get enough credit for like being morale, loving, innocent, and the voice of reason for those around them. It was Eva who fueled Tom’s Christian faith and love for all human beings. Her innocence makes her a character almost no reader can despise, and when she dies, and later when Tom dies preaching her word, the reader naturally feels saddened and sympathetic. These two themes come together to form her last theme. That Slavery is evil and has no place in the world.

The two main topics of this book deal with slavery and the abolitionist movement to stop slavery. Stowe uses the characters of Uncle Tom and Eliza Harris to show both of these sides. In the beginning of the book, Uncle Tom and Eliza Harris’s master, Arthur Shelby, who is a well-respected and

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, female characters are always depicted as mothers or wives, and these women mostly are the moral guidance of the slaves. For example, Mrs. Shelby, the first masters of Tom, was shaped as a woman with noble moral and deeply influenced by some Christian doctrine. When she was told that Tom was sold, she scolded the slavery system seriously, which indicated that she was also a radical abolitionist. However, most of the men in this book are always shaped as greedy, brutal, and morally weak. Uncle Tom’s portrayal was quiet different from all these male image. Tom was an honest and tolerant man, and he is also pious follower of Christianity, which lead to his choice differ from others in the book. For instance, when Tom was told