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Analysis Of Uncle Tom's Cabin, By Harriet Beecher Stowe

1053 Words5 Pages

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel written and published in 1852, remains today one of the most influential and inspiring novels in American Literature. This novel, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe raised much awareness in abolishing slavery and caused an uproar on the brutality and immorality of keeping a human being as one’s slave. The setting of this book is in many different areas, starting with Kentucky, New Orleans, on the Mississippi River, Ohio, Canada, and finally Liberia. The theme of the novel has been disputed ever since it was published, with some stating it is about the horrific lifestyle of slavery and others stating it just being about morality, preaching, and spreading of Christianity. The novel begins in Kentucky, as Arthur Shelby …show more content…

Simon Legree, a mean and nasty man is Tom’s new slave master. When Tom arrives at his new plantation is where it is shown how much he is a man of God and how far his faith can carry him. Legree has his other slaves put the beatings on Tom. Tom meets another slave, Cassy an older and stern slave, who is not a pushover even for Legree. Cassy often offers help to Tom but he declines and Tom lets what happens, continue to happen. Tom again puts his destiny in his faith as he believes that this is the life that God has given him. Legree often tries to persuade Tom to let go of his faith but Tom refuses and this leads to even more vicious beatings on Tom. Tom, however, gets to a point where his faith is deteriorating but returns in full force after he has visions of Jesus Christ and of Eva. Cassy creates a plan to escape with another slave at the plantation, Emmeline. Tom declines offer to escape with Cassy and Emmeline but he persuades them to go with the plan. George Shelby, the son of Arthur Shelby finds Tom at the plantation and offers to buy Tom but Legree rudely declines and has Tom killed by other Slaves, Sambo and Quimbo after Tom does not report on the escapes of Cassy and Emmeline. Sambo and Quimbo eventually have beaten Tom so badly that he is close to death. As Tom is dying, he forgives his killers, just as Jesus Christ did. This act of kindness and love changes the perspective of the life of Sambo

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1525 Words | 7 Pages

He thinks about the fragility of one man versus the strength of unity and recites some of the Scripture that Jim Casy taught him. Tom is tired of seeing starving men needlessly suffer while avaricious landowners do nothing to alleviate their plight. He is angry that “people livin’ like pigs, an’ the good rich lan’ layin’ fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hunderd thousan’ good farmers is starvin’”(Steinbeck 288) He decides he wants to fight back against the injustice and thievery. Tom changes significantly as a result of Casy’s death.

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705 Words | 3 Pages

Since Legree can not take out his anger on the women, he settles for Tom instead, demanding Tom knows where they are. Tom says he would rather die than give up the information, and after hesitation, Legree beats Tom all night. Legree then gives the job over to his overseers, where even through pain, Tom tells them of Jesus, saving them. In Tom’s last moments alive, he is visited by his old friend George Shelby. George then threatens and hits Legree, pledging to do all he can to try to abolish slavery.

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1621 Words | 7 Pages

Tom eventually convinces two female slaves to escape, but is beat to death soon after. The two escaped slaves end up telling their story to Mr. Shelby who the happen to end up on the same ship. It is then revealed that two slaves on the ship are related to Eliza and George and end up travelling to Canada, eventually being reunited with their whole family. Mr. Shelby returns home without Tom, devastated, he soon after grants all of his slaves freedom.

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1363 Words | 6 Pages

Tom grows from a spoiled kid to a dishonest and lazy adult. Tom's greedy education is the reason why he is flawed. From a young age he got everything that he wanted and a sense of power is born within him. When he becomes an adult the idea of working or making an honest living seems below him. Instead, he feels he has the right to just to take whatever he wants.

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1451 Words | 6 Pages

Simon Legree can be characterized as an evil, vicious man from a Louisiana plantation. He has a strong hatred against the slaves. Legree begins to show a strong dislike for Tom due his refusal to whip a fellow slave. Instead Simon turns and beats Tom cruelly and is determined to crush Tom’s trust in God. Tom never refuses to stop reading his Bible or praying.

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763 Words | 4 Pages

Tom is a black man who has a wife and kids and he does chores for Mayella Ewell because he feels bad for her and the fact that her dad was raping her and that some of her siblings are actually her children. When he wouldn’t kiss her back she lied and said that he raped her and beat her up. Tom is a mockingbird because he is a black man on trial for raping a white woman. He was obviously innocent but he was a black man before an all white jury so he was still found guilty. Tom Robinson was savagely shot during exercise time outside by a tower guard at the jail who says that Tom tried to run and jump the fence.

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631 Words | 3 Pages

The division in race causes Tom Robinson to be scared for his life. He understands that even being near a white woman as an African American is not an acceptable position to be in. Scout explains, “I did not understand the subtlety of Toms predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run-a sure sign of guilt” (Lee 260-261). Tom understands the division in race and how he is in a lower class than the least respected white family. He would never ever try to do something to hurt another soul, much less a white woman.

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988 Words | 4 Pages

When Tom helps to bathe his mother, she informs to her father, not to be like his father. This is ironic to tom because he watches each and every day his mother being abused, all beaten up by his dad and can’t stand it, and never wants to be a callous person like him. Lastly, When Tom’s dad leaves a black man that he hit by his car to die, as he hits the black man observing the situation, and tells his father to help the black man, his father angrily retorts “leave him there to die”. Since Bobby Cherry continues to do such harsh actions, his son is affected by his sins. As a result Tom grew up having the wrong sensations towards colored

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537 Words | 3 Pages

Tom never be Shelby’s good friend. Tom’s third master, Legree , Tom refuses to compromise his Christian faith in the face of the many trials he undergoes at Legree’s plantation. When he is beaten to death by Legree and his men, he dies forgiving them. In this way, Tom becomes a Christian martyr, a model for the behavior of both whites and blacks.

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422 Words | 2 Pages

Being bought by Legree marked a significant civil turning point in Tom’s life because he experienced a remarkable shift in Tom’s masters’ moral treatment toward him.. For example, before Tom was bought by Legree he was under the ownership of Mr. Shelby and St. Clare. Both characters treated Tom kindly and with trust. Mr. Shelby displays his trust for Tom by letting, “him go to Cincinnati, to do business… and bring home five hundred dollars,” (Stowe, 1852, p. 43). Master Shelby also says, “I’ve trusted him, since then, with everything I have, - money, house, horses, - and let him come and go round the country; and I always found him true and square in everything,” (Stowe, 1852, p. 42).

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1099 Words | 5 Pages

Finally when Tom was blamed for raping Mayella, even thought everyone knew the truth, and when he did something to help her out out of the goodness of his heart, but because he was of different status and race backfires, Toms status as a symbolic mockingbird becomes

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212 Words | 1 Pages

Tom is a very dynamic, interesting character and in the ever first two chapters we learn a lot about him. In the second chapter of the book, we learn that Tom is a very arrogant and egotistical. Tom is very self centered and unaware. Tom’s wife talking about having a her first child states “‘it'll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where”(16-17).

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588 Words | 3 Pages

He purposely kills Tom, for no apparent good reason. Because Tom was a pious man, he forgives Legree and the two men that beat him. He even begs the Lord to save Sambo and Quimbo. Harriet Beecher Stowe uses this strategy with a soft hand in the beginning and a hard one in the end, with each instance becoming harsher, more heartbreaking and more

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649 Words | 3 Pages

He is the embodiment of the mockingbird in the story, because all he’s done is be righteous, yet he is put to death due to his skin color. Mr. Underwood recognizes Tom’s unfair death, and “He likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children…”

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941 Words | 4 Pages

He is a respectable man who is torn down because of the prejudice towards his race. Tom is an innocent mockingbird who does nothing but go out of the way to help others. In the book, Tom is accused of raping a white woman, when he was only helping her with some of her chores. During Tom’s trial he was asked many questions as to why he helped Mayella Ewell in the first place, he responded “Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of ‘em -” (197).

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