Slavery In Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Recommended: Abraham Lincoln's view on slavery

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 …show more content…

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

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