Essay on Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Through Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe communicates to readers that slavery is morally corrupt, by showing the wrong in slave owner's actions, the struggles and heartaches slaves were put through, and how faith and religion ultimately contradicted all that slavery encompassed.

She also portrays the lives of other slaves who face critical life situations. The story begins on the Shelby’s estate where the slave favored buys slaves at the recommendations of the master. First, he buys Uncle Tom, an honest man and a clever worker, and as an addition to the main “good," he also buys Eliza’s son. This act destroys two families. Eliza is forced to flee to save her son, and Tom is forever separated from his wife and children. The lives of slaves in the novel take different paths. Eliza makes a desperate decision to escape to freedom across the Ohio river, leaping from ice flow to ice flow with her little son in her arms. Later Eliza and her husband Harris escape to Canada, where there is no slavery. “Good old” Tom takes the path of Christian obedience, and he gradually acquires the features of a holy martyr. An example of his Christianity is when his master offers him a better position at the expense of controlling and causing harm to other slaves, and Tom turns him down. He does not want to harm and to bring pain to other people. Tom’s moral search helps him find spiritual solace and faith in justice. Even though he experiences a lot of life injustices, he becomes spiritually purified by reading the Bible and communicating with the little angel Eva. Tom’s Christianity leads him to believe in the equality of all people, regardless of gender, skin color, and

Uncle Tom's Cabin had a tremendous impact. The character Uncle Tom is an African American who retains his integrity and refuses to betray his fellow slaves at the cost of his life. His firm Christian principles in the face of his brutal treatment made him a hero to whites. In contrast, his tormenter Simon Legree, the Northern slave-dealer turned plantation owner, enraged them with his cruelty. Stowe convinced readers that the institution of slavery itself was evil, because it supported people like Legree and enslaved people like Uncle Tom. Because of her work, thousands rallied to the anti-slavery cause.

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

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

Whenever people are enduring a tough time, they have different ways of handling the situation that they are in. Some people lose hope and stay in the situation that they are in, some turn to sports, and some people use their faith to pray and act as a good Christian to get through their tough times. Published in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin heavily and frequently turn to God in order to pray that they get out of their situations which is being slave. The novel shows the escape of two slaves named George and Eliza and the journey of the most moral and devout Christian in this book the main character, Uncle Tom. The concept and ideology of religion in Uncle Tom’s plays a large role in the novel because it religion influences the actions of the slaves and other characters on numerous occasions and it provides a better sense of identity for the slaves. In addition, after reading this classic novel, it is evident that the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, is heavily against the practice of slavery. Lastly, this novel goes against some of the basic stereotypes regarding slavery.

Stowe believed that her writing gave her the ability to speak out publicly about matters for which the opinions of a woman was typically not sought or considered. She used writing as her voice and when Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published, she was found to have one of the loudest voices of them all. The character of Uncle Tom portrayed the life of a Christian slave that was sold to multiple slave owners and befriended other slaves throughout his struggles. The story ends when Uncle Tom is whipped to death by a cruel slave owner for not disclosing the location of his wife and another runaway slave. This story ripped open the issue of slavery and laid it bare for the world to see.

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”.

Tom first lives with a kind man named Arthur Shelby and his family. Tom has a family of his own with his wife, Chloe, and their three children. Mr. Shelby owns many slaves and treats them nicely, especially Tom because he works hard. Then, when Mr. Shelby needs to sell a few slaves because of financial reasons, he chooses Tom and a little boy named Harry, the son of another slave, Eliza. Eliza hears this news and decides to run away with Harry and suggests Tom does the same thing, but he doesn’t and decides to stay and be taken away from his family.

Uncle Tom 's Cabin focuses on the lives of two slaves, who both start under the ownership of a Mr. Shelby, who is known to treat his slaves well. However, Mr. Shelby was in the debt of a man named Haley, who is a slave trader. In return for the debt owed to him, Haley wants two slaves: one being the son of a beautiful mulatto woman named Eliza, the other being the devout Christian named Tom, who is nicknamed 'Father Tom ' because of his sermons. Eliza is also a Christian, as are the rest of the slaves on Mr. Shelby 's farm. Eliza loves her son dearly, and rather than

When Uncle Tom was transported by ship to New Orleans, he became acquainted with a young white girl called Eva. When Eva fell into the river, Tom saved her life. To thank for Tom saving her life, Eva's father, Augustine St. Clare, bought Tom from the hands of the slave dealer. Two years after Tom lived with St. Clare, Eva got a seriously ill. Before she died, she dreamed of heaven and as Eva's death and her dreams, St. Clare promised to set Tom free. However, before St. Clare fulfilled his promise, he was stabbed by a knife because he was involved in a battle. Tom's second master, the little girl Eva's father; is the most compassionate slave in the novel. St. Clare had realized the evil of the slavery, but had not yet been able to give up for

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Evangeline St Clare and Uncle Tom are two characters portrayed in the text as Christ figures through their similar actions as spiritual guides and in their contrasting physical descriptions and deaths in order to resonate with a religious audience to create a more romanticized novel that influences the readers to a greater extent in order to aid the book in being an abolitionist piece of literature.

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.

In his death, Tom becomes Jesus Christ. Tom sacrifices himself for harboring knowledge of the actions of escaped slaves, and for his devotion to his faith. Upon being carried away by his tormentors, Tom says the final