Human cruelty was constantly present during the antebellum period. It is a vital part of America’s culture and it must be reiterated to new generations. In the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe recaps human cruelty through portraying the alteration in Mr. Shelby, affects the readers’ emotions by displaying views from various characters and demonstrates continuous separation of families during the antebellum period. Mr. Shelby’s dynamic character is constantly modified in the first third of the book. In the beginning of the novel he is depicted as a protagonist due to the absence of the real protagonist, Uncle Tom, whose character is introduced in the later stages of the novel. Stowe illustrates him as a noble man by stating, “Mr. Shelby had the appearance of a gentleman” (2). This is one of the first lines in the novel and it abets the reader to envision him as fine, respectable person. Establishing him as a positive person at the start of the novel is vital for the plot of the story, (as) because later on in the book Stowe displays the dramatic negative changes in Mr. Shelby that come to him (due to his involvement in a slave trade) because he is involved in a slave trade. The author also establishes Mr. Haley as the antagonist at the commencement of the novel by introducing Haley’s foul dialect. Mr. Haley frequently says “nigger” (2) and mispronounces words as “valeyable” (2). Stowe utilizes this technique for the purpose of contrasting Mr. Haley to Mr. Shelby and further confirming that Mr. Shelby is a positive character. As the novel develops Mr. Shelby transforms into a shameless person. After a lengthy conversation with his wife he states, “I have agreed to sell Tom and Harry both; and I don’t know why I am to be rated as if I were a monster for doing what everyone does every day” (41). This statement portrays Shelby’s bemused state of mind. He is no longer the noble man he used to be. He does not seem to feel ignominious about dealing Tom and Harry’s lives away. The author also utilizes Mr. Shelby and other characters to display diverse views about life during the antebellum period, therefore, impacting the readers’ emotions. The most notable instance that alternates one’s feelings to melancholy is Stowe’s description of Mr. and Mrs Shelby’s feelings after a spiteful conversation with Mr.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811. Her father was Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Congregational Church in Harriet’s hometown of Litchfield, Connecticut. Harriet’s brother was Henry Ward Beecher who became pastor of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church. The religious background of Harriet’s family and of New England taught Harriet several traits typical of a New Englander: theological insight, piety, and a desire to improve humanity (Columbia Electronic Library; “Biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe”).
The characters in this story are some very interesting people. They each lead their own way of life, and have their own interests at heart. Some of the main characters in this novel are: Sarny, Lucy, Miss Laura, Bartlett, Stanley, and Sarny's two children Little Delie, and Tyler. Sarny is the central character in this book. She is clever and knows exactly what to even in the worst of times. She is very emotional though, and can break down and cry when the slightest of things happens. This is perhaps from what she has experienced as a slave earlier on in her life. Sarny is fond of teaching people, as a friend named Nightjohn once taught her. Lucy is Sarny's close friend. She is also quite wise, but is a bit too optimistic at times. She never stops smiling and is very friendly. However, she does help Sarny find her lost children. Miss Laura is a middle-aged woman who lives a very luxurious life. She gives Sarny and Lucy a place to live and offers them employment. She also finds Sarny's children for her. Bartlett works for Miss Laura as well. He is a quiet and patient man who is helpful and quite kind. He was however castrated as a young slave boy, and cannot have children. Stanley is Sarny's second husband, for her first died from being worked to death on the plantation. Stanley is a gentle, big, fun-loving man, but is not intimidated by anything. This leads him to his death when he gets mad at a white man, and is confronted by the Ku Klux Klan. Little Delie and Tyler are Sarny's lost children. After she recovers them, and they grow up, Little Delie starts to like business, while Tyler wants to become a doctor.
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.
During the Antebellum Era in the United States, it was constitutionally protected to own slaves as property. Slavery also made up a large sum of the American economy, especially in the Southern states. However, the act of slavery in America was much more than economic stimulation and constitutional interpretations. Slavery was cognitively oppressive and immortal as it dehumanized the white population and enslaved people. In the slave narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass, both authors write how their lived experiences embodies the dehumanization of African Americans in both physical and mental acts of violence. In addition, their narratives render examples of how mistresses and masters did not acknowledge the problems of slavery
Irony is the opposite of what is and what seems to be. Harper Lee uses irony in
Uncle Tom’s cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852. It is an anti-slavery book that shows the reader the many sufferings endured by slaves in the period before the civil war. To the people of the modern day generation, these acts of slavery are unbelievable but the reader has to realize the fact that in those years, people suffered, to the point where they were just treated as property, where owners can do whatever they like and be disposed of or traded as if they were just material possessions and not even human. The book talks about the relationship between slaves and their masters as well as the role of women. As slavery was practiced during such times, Stowe tries to expose the difficult life people had in the past and how their faith in God helped them to endure all there hardships.
Tom’s death wasn’t for granted. Through his death and his lifetime, many people were converted to Christianity, others started thinking that maybe by glorifying God, and following his footsteps, their life will be better and without cruelty. He opened eyes of the Mr. Shelby to the nature of slavery. He realized that in the eyes of the God slavery is wrong, unhuman and immortal. “"Witness, eternal God!" said George, kneeling on the grave of his poor friend; "oh, witness, that, from this hour, I will do what one man can to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!" (Stowe, 519) Mr. Shelby decided to work toward abolition of slavery with the help of God, because that is what God really wants. This is the main message that Stowe tried to pass to the readers. She wants that everyone to open their eyes, as Mr. Shelby did.
Overall Uncle Tom’s Cabin is filled with religious overtones of martyrdom, imposed religion, and genuine piety of the slaves in bondage. Harriet Beecher Stowe shows the divide between how the slaveholders see religion as a whip to keep slaves in line and how slaves see the same religion as a balm for the wounds inflicted on them by the whites.
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.
Mood helps in creating an atmosphere in a literary work by means of setting, theme, diction and tone. Throughout the book To kill a mockingbird the author wanted the mood to be sorrowful or vexed or just fret about how the people are acting because seeing how things were being treated or how people acted would be enough to make you feel angry or sad or worried for the people who were in the book. You always wanted to know what was going to come next or how something would end. Vex was a very prominent mood in this story and is definitely the most relevant.
In the opening chapters of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harper Lee introduces several subtle instances of racism. However, when Jem and Scout are welcomed into Cal’s Church in chapter 12, the reader really gets to travel behind the false disguise of Maycomb County’s white society to see the harsh realities of the injustices suffered by the blacks. The black community is completely separate from the whites -- in fact, Cal lives in a totally different part of town!
Nelle Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird has been considered one of the classic works of American literature. To Kill A Mockingbird is the work ever published by Nelle Harper Lee, and it brought her great fame. However, Nelle Harper Lee has published several other articles in popular magazines. Nelle Harper Lee is not an individual who desires to be in the light and little is known about her personal life. At the time it is believed she is possible working on her memoirs. The fictional work of To Kill A Mockingbird plots many elements close to real events in America’s struggle over civil rights.
The illumination of the brutal treatment of the slaves, both physically and mentally, are also apparent in the works of Stowe and Jacobs. Stowe, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, uses the stories of Eliza, Harry, Uncle Tom and Cassy to show how slavery, with both cruel and kind masters, affects different members of the slave community. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs focuses her work on the how the institution is “terrible for men; but is far more terrible for women” (B:933), adding sexual abuse to the atrocities of slavery. Douglass’ Madison gives the reader a masculine perspective on the
The story begins with Haley giving Shelby the option of trading a couple of his slaves to pay off his debt. Haley tells Shelby that he wants Tom, Shelby's most faithful slave. Knowing he has little choice, Shelby eventually signs over Eliza's five year old son, Harry and Tom to Mr. Haley, thus settling his debts. Eliza overhears the men talking and flees the plantation with her son. With Haley not far behind, she starts her dangerous journey to Canada, where she hopes to meet up with her husband, George, who is also a runaway. Haley is unable to catch Eliza, so he returns to the farm and collects Tom. With plans of taking Tom to be sold in the South, Haley boards a steamboat with several other slaves.
Even the slave owners and traders are stereotypes now. Mr. Shelby and his wife have become the “gentlemen and lady” slave holders, who see themselves as good Christian people and attempt to take good care of their slaves, but still don’t see black people as equal to whites. Simon Legree has become the stereotypical cruel master, who let his estate go to hell, but continued to work his slaves too hard and beat them senseless (or, in Tom’s and other’s cases, to death) when they did not behave as he thought they should.