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Simon Davis
Mr. Ellis
ENGL 2130
November 14, 2014
Slaves—Property or Human Beings? Harriet Beecher Stowe writes Uncle Tom’s Cabin to showcase people’s various attitudes toward slavery. Individuals and groups within particular regions of the United States regard slavery differently, depending upon prevailing opinions, as well as their own upbringing. The reader is exposed to viewpoints ranging from those of disinterested onlookers to slaves in shocking situations. She uses the North to symbolize freedom from slavery and the South to symbolize suppression of human beings (Hood 52). She transports characters in the book from the relatively neutral state of Kentucky, northward or southward, so that they encounter changes in attitudes and practices
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The author impresses upon her audience that North means toward freedom, even though a captured runaway slave must be returned to the rightful owner, according to law (Hood 52; Brophy 111-12). Harriet Beecher Stowe wants to encourage readers to help slaves escape from the cruelties of bondage (Hagood 75). Every slave who learns of Eliza’s flight comes to believe that freedom is possible, because her actions lead to a positive outcome. The Harris family is reunited through the efforts of The Underground Railroad, which Stowe supports (Hood …show more content…
While he is in Kentucky, his masters allow him to handle cash and run errands without supervision. When St. Clare buys Tom, the master treats all of his slaves the same, including the new one—pleasantly. In the south, Mr. Legree shackles his slaves and works them sadistically. Tom has lived through kindness, betrayal, and suffering to get readers to empathize more with the plight of slaves who are bought and sold.
Tom’s most brutal slave master in the Deep South is Mr. Legree. He seems to fear losing his only source of income, if he cannot guarantee that his slaves will work hard on his farm. He sees threatening slaves with brutal beatings as the means to keep him in control of his slaves. He sees Tom as a potential agitator whom he must break. Legree does not know how to deal with someone who is not afraid of him, no matter how cruel the slave master
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative of his Life both endeavor to stir antislavery sentiment in predominantly white, proslavery readers. Each author uses a variety of literary tactics to persuade audiences that slavery is inhumane. Equiano uses vivid imagery and inserts personal experience to appeal to audiences, believing that a first-hand account of the varying traumas slaves encounter would affect change. Stowe relies on emotional connection between the readers and characters in her novel. By forcing her audience to have empathy for characters, thus forcing readers to confront the harsh realities of slavery, Stowe has the more effective approach to encouraging abolitionist sentiment in white readers.
Uncle Tom's Cabin tells a story of adversity in the struggle for freedom, a look into human cruelty as well as human compassion, and one man's loyalty to those he is indentured to. It is set in a period just before the Civil War; during the time when the black people of America were not citizens, but property and had no rights. In the south during this time, the blacks were forced to work hard labor on plantations and were required to live in small dorms outside of their owner's homes. However, the novel is more than just a narrative of slaves, but of human emotion rising up in the face of adversity. It is a story of the fight for freedom, and an account of the history of America. The author brings out the humanity in the slaves, and describes the great injustices that took place during the time.
I never thought that I would read a book over the summer, but over the course of these past two months, that changed. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” forever changed how I view slavery. I loved reading it. Throughout the whole novel, Stowe uses her experience and knowledge to portray the terrible hardships and struggles that slaves endured everyday. Not only does this book express the thoughts of the slaves and their faith in God, but also of the people around them. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” wanted so badly for America to give freedom and equality for all people, and that is what I enjoyed most while reading.
“As it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is on one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” This quote said by Thomas Jefferson accurately depicted the political, economic, and social issues that were presented in the 1800s. The novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe created a massive awareness politically and socially for the abolitionist movement. Throughout Uncle Tom’s Cabin Stowe paints the picture of the cruel and unjust treatment of slaves on large plantations in the 1850s. Although Uncle Tom’s Cabin shows that large scale plantations showed empathy towards their slaves after the 1830s; however, Uncle Tom’s Cabin accurately depicts the lives of slaves after
In the novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe introduces a housemaid slave, Eliza, who was promised her son would not be sold, however, when the poor economic conditions had hit her slave owners, they did not keep up with the promise of keeping Eliza’s son. One night she overheard them planning to sell her son, so Eliza escaped to help her son. “Eliza made her desperate retreat across the river just in the dusk of twilight. The gray mist of evening, rising slowly from the river, envelope...
...rd. Thus putting Legree in Anger, he orders his overseers to beat him. When Tom is close to death, he forgives them. A bit too late, Shelby had finally arrived at Legree’s plantation after years of searching for his slave Tom. Shelby arrives with money to buy Tom’s freedom, but is too late. He can only watch as Tom dies as a scapegoat. As George was leaving the plantation, the two women tried to make a break for freedom, only to hitch a ride with him after they had explained their story. On a boat to freedom, Shelby and the girls meet Harris’s sister and had travel with her, where Cassy realizes that Eliza is her daughter. They decide to travel to France when Harris’s sister had claimed to be rich, from there they decided to move to Africa where many former African slaves return too. George had returned back to his farm, releasing all of the slaves in honor of Tom.
...ecause he himself hates the Christian values. He tries to force Uncle Tom to look out for himself and flog a woman. Uncle Tom blatantly refuses. Legree is outraged, and yells that he owns Uncle Tom, body and soul, to which Uncle Tom replies that Jesus owns his soul, not Legree. The ultimate reward of living a Christian life is worth any amount of pain Legree will inflict on him. Legree orders Uncle Tom to be beaten until he obeys, but he dies.
“Porter’s tom was the first in a long line of socially acceptable Good Negro characters. Always as toms are chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep the faith, n’er turn against their massas, and remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind.”(Bogle,4)
Stowe is trying to prove to the reader that slavery is wrong and nothing short of evil and cruel. She does an effective job at proving her point, while delivering a superb novel at the same time. Stowe is constantly tying to prove that slavery is evil. She opens the novel, by showing two slave owners, making a business deal. Mr. Shelby is in debt to Haley, so he must sell Uncle Tom and Harry, tearing them apart from their families. Stowe shows a young slave woman, Eliza and her affection for her son Harry, when she decides to take her son and run away. This disputes the common belief of the time that slaves mothers has less affection for their youth than white women. Uncle Tom is sold again to the carefree Augustine St. Clare whos philosophy is “Why save time or money, when there's plenty of both?” Uncle Tom receives good treatment at the St. Clare’s, which proves that the novel is not one-sided, showing that their where kind slave owners. However Uncle Tom is sold again, this time up the Red River to the “devil” Simon Legree.
Statements like this were not simply crafted to enhance character development; they were created in an attempt to make whites see slaves as mothers, fathers, Christians, and most of all...people. The character of Tom is described as "a man of humanity" certainly not a description commonly linked to black people at that time.
His master wants to take him away from Eliza and is forcing him to marry within the plantation. George is a hardworking slave and his master does not seem to like the praises he would get. His master likes to torment him and make his life not worth living because George is a slave. When George expresses his feelings to Eliza, she tells him to believe in God and pray. George, however, concludes that his “heart’s full of bitterness; [he] can’t trust in God” (Stowe III). George’s master’s son is also like his father. The son, Tom, is a cruel little boy because he beats the horses and he beats George. The readers can infer that Tom will be like his father when he grows up because he is already starting his training to become a slave master with cruelty and callousness like his
It is extremely difficult for the modern reader to understand and appreciate Uncle Tom’s Cabin because Harriet Beecher Stowe was writing for an audience very different from us. We don’t share the cultural values and myths of Stowe’s time, so her novel doesn’t affect us the way it affected its original readers. For this reason, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been heavily scrutinized by the modern critic. However, the aspects of the novel that are criticized now are the same aspects that held so much appeal for its original audience.
Throughout Tom's journey from the Shelby farm to his death on Legree's farm, many of the slaves and sympathizers held incredibly high morality levels, while many of their non-supporters displayed acts of cruelty and hatred. There was often a deep contrast between these two classes, with both containing prime examples of what is morally wrong and right.
Rarely is one work of literature so significant that it has the ability to change a society or cascade it down a path of ruinous conflict. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is a work that provided such a catalytic occurrence. To this day, this work of fiction brilliance is considered one of the most instrumental American works to ever be published. Selling over a million copies in its first two years and being the second bestselling book next to the Bible, what makes this accomplishment even more incredible is the fact that a woman wrote this book during a period in history when women were not granted the ability to have roles of influence or leadership, in any society1. In 1852, when the book was published, women were nonetheless confined to domestic obligations. With the help of the books, Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice written by Joe Holland, one is able to understand how much of an impact Stowe had on America’s history with the way people viewed slavery. The percussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin caused much conflict between the abolitionists and the antislavery citizens. This work is important to history because it created the idea of finding a place for religion in society, shone a light on how African American slaves were treated, pushed the United States to a realization with the idea of whether slavery could continue to be a cornerstone of American life and how it contributed to the beginning of the Civil War. As Abe Lincoln said of Stowe, “the little woman who started the Great War1.”
“So this is the little lady who made this big war.” Abraham Lincoln’s legendary comment upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe demonstrates the significant place her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, holds in American history. Published in book form in 1852, the novel quickly became a national bestseller and stirred up strong emotions in both the North and South. The context in which Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written, therefore, is just as significant as the actual content. Among other things, Stowe’s publication of her novel was stimulated by the increasing tensions among the nation’s citizens and by her fervent belief that slavery was brutally immoral.