It was during the time of extensive slavery practice in America that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote het anti-slavery novel - Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book lays the foundations of abolitionism, criticizes the problems of injustice and immorality economically, politically and theologically, par-ticularly, the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. In the novel, Stowe divides the characters into two groups based on her implication of race and gender morality, Christianity and non-Christi-anity.
To demonstrate her political opinion, Stowe makes her arguments in an emotional way. Stowe clari-fies herself as a partisan against the evil of slavery from all her implication and tone of description. The evil of slavery-treated human beings as property
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Tom presents the basic good faith in the novel. In order to avoid bankruptcy of his master and avoid other slaves suf-fering the fate of being sold, Tom prefers to go down through the Mississippi River to the South. He knows his destiny will be cruel and harsh but the Christianity spirit of sacrifice and love guided him. In the novel, Mrs. Shelby helps female slave, Eliza, to escape. Youthful master George guaran-tees the freedom to all his slaves. They're morally virtuous and insightful characteristics let readers sympathize with the noble sentiments of slaves. Nevertheless, many slave owners and slave traders have other understanding of Christianity-the emphasis on absolute order. One major character Legree, ruthlessly evil master on the Louisiana plantation, practices and abuses of slavery on a daily basis. He presents image of vicious and barbaric slave master fostering violence and hatred among his slaves. Haley, a gruff, coarse trader, violently mistreats his slaves. They keep the attitude that God created everything and the appropriation of white
Stowe expresses the terrors of slavery, by giving the reader insight into what life was like as a slave in the south; and through this, it shows how inhumane slavery was. For example, when Uncle
On a superficial level, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a fictitious, narrative about slavery. Yet, the truth is that the novel is filled with propaganda. A narrator, Stowe, breaks the third wall to directly address the issues of slavery with the reader. The novel ends with revelatory remarks that there can be no possible justification for owning slaves, and beyond the condemnation, action needs to be taken to end the horrible enterprise. Beyond direct statement through the narrator and characters, the characters themselves hold a type of persuasions in their actions and thoughts. This novel is more than just a casual read. There can be no mistake, the novel is a form of propaganda with the ultimate goal of influencing its readers
Throughout the novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe touches the reader’s heart through lifelike characters and emotions. Due to Mrs. Stowe’s articulate ability to create a realistic image in her readers’ minds, I was left with a multitude variety of sentiment while reading the book. From joy to sadness, acceptance
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.
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
Since Christianity rests on the principle of universal love, no Christian should tolerate slavery. If all people were to put the principle into practice it would be impossible for the oppression and enslavement of one section of humanity. Throughout the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe has illustrated the fact that the system of slavery and principles of Christianity oppose each other. The novel exposes the evils of slavery—its incompatibility with Christian principles—and points the way to its transformation through Christian love through the characterization of some characters in the novel. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Christian principles of forgiveness, compassion, and belief in an afterlife is embodied though the character
Harriet Beecher Stowe tells stories of different slaveholders apathetic, abusive, and hypocritical actions towards various slaves in her beautifully written novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, during the 19th century in order to help convey the true evil behind slavery- no matter the circumstance. The author allows readers to view slavery from seemingly safe environments to hostile settings, and continually shows the bad in every situation. The reality of slavery is shown to anyone willing to read this novel, and Harriet Beecher Stowe does a good job of combining various stories that tie together in order to complete her goal.
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.
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
Tom is now sold to Simon Legree. Simon (a transplanted northerner) takes Tom and Emmeline, who was bought the same time as Tom to Louisiana and they meet other slaves. Legree hates Tom and when Tom refuses his orders Legree brutally beats Tom and wants to crush his slave’s faith in God. Tom still refuses to stop reading the Bible and tries to help other slaves. Tom soon meets Cassy, another one of Legree’s slaves. Cassy was separated from her son and daughter and killed her third child so she won’t see him get sold to another farmer. Tom Loker later returns to the story and it turns out he was healed by the Quakers. But Eliza’s family has gained their freedom across Canada. In Louisiana, Tom almost loses his hope in God. However, he has two visions; one of Eva and one of Jesus and determines to remain faithful in
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
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is one of the world famous stories which depict the evil of slavery. After reading the book, the audience will acknowledge the affliction of slaves at that time. The reason is Stowe makes use of many strategies such as rhetorical devices and persuasive elements to reinforce her central claim: it is time for people to fight against slavery.
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.
There are two plot lines in this book. Each of the plot lines represent diverse destiny of different slaves. One is about uncle Tom which represents those unfortunate slaves and they are the majority, they are as property for business, their destinies are vagrant. They may have a good owner at first, but the probability is narrow, and for some reason, they switch to tyrannical slave owners who maltreat slaves and even cause
Stowe uses her platform to show these political arguments by humanizing the characters and uses pathos to get the reader emotionally involved. She uses positive religious figures to go against slavery to get her idea across. Uncle Tom, a slave, is a devout Christian and through many trials and tribulations, he never loses his faith. He often gets put in positions that instead of questioning God, he trusts in him even more, an example of this is when Legree tries to turn him against God. Also as Uncle Tom is dying, he tells the men that he forgives them. He never loses his faith even on his last dying breath. Mrs. Shelby, a Christian woman, too thought that slavery goes against the love of the Lord: “Abolitionist! If they knew all I know about slavery, they might talk! We don’t need them to tell us; you know I