Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Harriet Beecher Stowe was born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. She was the daughter of a Calvinist minister and she and her family was all devout Christians, her father being a preacher and her siblings following. Her Christian attitude much reflected her attitude towards slavery. She was for abolishing it, because it was, to her, a very unchristian and cruel institution. Her novel, therefore, focused on the ghastly points of slavery, including the whippings, beatings, and forced sexual encounters brought upon slaves by their masters. She wrote the book to be a force against slavery, and was joining in with the feelings of many other women of her time, whom all became more outspoken and influential in reform movements, including temperance and womens suffrage. The main point of Harriet Beecher Stowe in the writing of Uncle Toms Cabin was to bring to light slavery to people in the north. In this she hoped to eventually sway people against slavery.
The novel Uncle Toms Cabin focuses on the lives of two slaves, who both start under the ownership of a Mr. Shelby, who is known as a man who treats his slaves well. Mr. Shelby, however, was indebted to a man of the name 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, and the other the devout Christian Tom, who is called Father Tom because of his sermons. Eliza is also a Christian, as are the rest of the slaves on Shelbys farm. Eliza loves her son dearly and rather than lose him to the slave-trader she takes him and heads to Canada, where she can be free. Haley follows but cant catch her before she goes from Kentucky, the state of the Shelby Farm, to Ohio. Haley then sends slave-catchers after her. He also goes back to the farm, and brings Tom on a steamboat to the South, a place where slaves are known to die, but Tom meets and makes a great impression on a little girl, Evangeline St. Clare, or Eva as she is called, and she persuades her father, Augustine St. Clare to purchase Tom. Augustine is a man against slavery, but too intelligent and idle to openly oppose it, instead choosing to let his slaves run freely and do whatsoever they please, within reason. Tom is bought as a man who works at the stable, and is the private driver of Marie St. Clare. Marie was a conceited woman who is too busy worrying about herself to take proper care of Eva, which results in Augustine bringing his cousin, Ophelia, to take care of her and was the reason for his and Evas traveling on the steamboat where Tom meets them. Meanwhile, Eliza is taken to a Quaker settlement on the border of the slave states where she meets up with George, her husband, who is a highly intelligent slave. He escaped to the Quaker settlement by dressing as a white man, which he isnt very far away from because of his mulatto descendance. He then uses another slave to act as his slave and makes it to the settlement after hearing Eliza, his wife, is there. They are soon told that men are after them, so they flee, have a confrontation in which one of the Quaker men pushes a slave-catcher into a ravine. The catcher is then taken to a Quaker home to be tended to where he heals and decides to no longer be a slave-catcher. They then, dressing as two men and their daughter, as opposed to husband, wife, and son, ride a ferry to Canada. Tom, on the other hand, is enjoying himself at St. Clares, where he is having an easy life, until Eva becomes sick, and dies. St. Clare is deeply affected by this, and begins to think about his own mortality, and the rights and wrongs of slavery. After much reflection he decides to initiate the freeing of Tom, whose wife, back in Kentucky, is trying to earn enough money to buy him back by being a confectioner. Tom is overjoyed when hearing the news of his freedom, but St. Clare dies before he can finish the proceedings, and Tom was sold at an auction before the Shelbys can be reached, for they would have surely came and bought him back. Tom is sold to a man named Legree, the character of the average hard slaveholder, dirty, mean and ugly. Tom is then beaten to death before George Shelby could come and buy him back. Tom didnt die scared because he was being beaten for not confessing the hiding place of two female slaves, and knew he was going to heaven. One of these females and another woman that the two meet on the way to Canada are relatives of George and Eliza and meet with them. They all eventually move to Liberia, a state created in Africa which was created for free blacks. Uncle Toms cabin comes to represent the beauty and humanity of slaves, and Toms legacy of Christian faith and obedience.
Stowe did a great job with this book. What is believed to be one of the influential books of all time, ranking with the works of Adam