Uncle Tom's Cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe Essay

D.     One of the most important elements that Stowe used to get her point across was Characterization. The message of slavery could not have been accurately portrayed if there was not proper character development. To fully understand what slaves went through, one has to fully understand the mind and heart of a slave. Stowe executes this beautifully with Eliza and Tom. She gives two different detailed and strong viewpoints, which helps the reader understand even more. Stowe includes many stereotypes in her characters. Mr. Haley is the stereotypical slave trader. He is evil, sly, and only cares about making money. This is a character that the reader is supposed to dislike and usually does. Mr. Shelby is supposed to be the “kinder'; slave owner, but Stowe makes it clear that all slavery is evil. The purpose of this character is to show that most men are basically good, but they have been brainwashed to believe that blacks are

So Stowe was accurate in portraying Eva’s mother as thinking slaves did not need to read and also accurate in her view of slaves in general. She viewed slaves as inferior when she said slaves were “not made for anything else” but for work (Stowe 286). This is an example or one theme in Stowe’s novel that is right in line with current historical research.

When we first meet Tom, at “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, Stowe introduces us to the small cabin adjacent to his master’s residence. Stowe is careful to describe the neat and organized nature of the cabin; there is a garden out front, a comfortable fireplace, a well-decorated interior, and a functional kitchen alongside other furnished, basic rooms. There is a clear disparity between this cabin and the rest of the Shelby residence (although this is not discretely said, one can imply that the “master’s” house was in better condition than where slaves were allowed to stay). However, the inhabitants of the cabin seem quite satisfied in their current condition. Tom and his wife, Chloe, are the leading figures of the household, and both, along with the children in the cabin, are well-nourished and quite content. Stowe stresses this, describing the children as having “fat shining cheeks” and mentioning Aunt Chloe’s whole persona “beams with satisfaction and contentment” (19-20). Mas’r George, the son of the owner of the Shelby residence, even spent a lot of time there, teaching Tom how to read and sitting in on meals and prayers. Overall, the establishment was a happy and overall “good” place, with some important Christian morals present, with prayer and respect at high levels.

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.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has been widely identified as the most influential American novel in the country’s history. Books have, of course, always had the power to bring about great social change, and the widespread distribution of Uncle Tom’s Cabin gave a vivid image of Southern life, particularly the mistreatment of slaves, to the entire country. While slavery was previously an issue between slaveholders and abolitionists, the moral outrage caused by Uncle Tom’s Cabin went a long way towards bringing the slavery debate to the forefront of the entire American consciousness. Broadly speaking, the book’s success brought the moral conflict to the general public, causing

Throughout the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin the setting changes.It starts out in Kentucky.Tom is later sold to New Orleans and then to a plantation up the Red River.At each new place Tom goes his faith in God is put to the test,but Tom stays pious and refuses to turn away from God.In Kentucky Tom is owned by Andy Shelby,a kindly master,who has fallen in to debt and is forced to sell his slaves.Tom is sold to a slave trader named Haley.He ends up in New Orleans in the possession of a romantic and flighty man by the name of St.Clare. After the unfortunate death of St.Clare and his daughter Tom is sold to a wicked plantation owner,Simon Legree,up the Red River.

The first character we will discuss is Emily Shelby who is the wife of Arthur Shelby who is a Kentucky Plantation owner and the owner of Uncle Tom. Mrs. Shelby is a kind, loving, and Christian woman who is strongly opposed to slavery and takes it upon herself to treat them with most respect. Mrs. Shelby from a spiritual standpoint cares about her slaves relationship with God and teaches his word to them. Mr. Shelby and Mrs. Shelby treat the slaves with kindness but differ significantly in regards to slavery. Unlike other women of this time period, Mrs. Shelby stands by her views and morals regardless if her

holds the beliefs going dead. This strong contrast has clearly shown Stowe’s idea about slavery. She

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin Mr. Shelby (from the north) treats his slaves with respect and treats them relatively humanly. There is no doubt that Mr. Shelby is Tom’s favorite slave owner, but Mr. shelby wasn’t perfect. Mr. Shelby is kind but careless with his slaves. For example, Mr. Shelby is kind because he gave his slaves freedom and even gave Tom a small cabin to live in. An example of Mr.Shelby being careless with his slaves is when he falls into debt causing him to break his code and sell tom and Eliza’s son Harry.

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, persuades the reader to believe that slavery is a detriment to social order by detailing the story with opposing arguments, an emphasis on maltreatment, and tragic death. She is also effective by directly addressing the reader.

H.B Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin has therefore become a compelling book because of its attempt to attract the attention of the Americans through her use of sentiments which later made the readers of her novel appreciate the need for democracy and equality. Therefore, this later transformed to reduced slavery although some criticisms came after

The character of Topsy is dualistic as well because she is ignorant if energetic.  Topsy does not know the difference between right and wrong, in a way an example by Stowe of the many ignorant individuals who supported slavery because they appeared to have no conception of its basic wrongs against humanity and Divine Law.  Or, Stowe also utilizes her character to demonstrate that slaves who do not have enough education will

One advantage of fiction for Stowe, it seems, was the ability it had given her to stretch out an argument and get away with it. If she had written a non-fiction account of the murder of a slave in the same fashion she had Uncle Tom at the hands of Simon Legree, most would have scoffed at her excessive references to the slave's Christ-like character. Stowe could not have done something like this with non-fiction as even a firsthand witness to the event she would not have had the power of the third-person omniscient narrative that she has with the novel genre (Gossett 193). The perspective affords Stowe the opportunity to address the actions of her characters -- like Uncle Tom's Christ-like reply to Legree -- as if it were the actual truth.

Throughout history there have been many books, fiction and non-fiction, documenting slavery in America, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin was arguably the most influential because of the mood of the nation when it was published. Many Americans were ready to abolish slavery, though few of them would vocalize their opinions, particularly women, who were expected to have little or no voice in the matter at all. Harriet Beecher Stowe, being a strong Christian, began to grow opposed to slavery as she heard and read many stories about escaped slaves, court cases, and the cruel punishments that African

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was the defining piece of the time in which it was written. The book opened eyes in both the North and South to the cruelties that occurred in all forms of slavery, and held back nothing in exposing the complicity of non-slaveholders in the upholding of America's peculiar institution. Then-president Abraham Lincoln himself attributed Stowe's narrative to being a cause of the American Civil War. In such an influential tale that so powerfully points out the necessity of emancipation, one would hardly expect to find racialism that would indicate a discomfort with the people in bondage. However, Stowe shows no apprehension in typifying her characters according to their various races. While this