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Slavery In Uncle Tom's Cabin Essay

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Uncle Tom 's Cabin, written by Harriet Breecher Stowe, is still critically acclaimed and recognized today for its prolific affects towards the abolition of slavery in the United States. It opened the eyes of Northerner 's and Southerners alike to the horrors of slavery and its degradation of another human being. Challenging the notion at that time, that slaves were property and not "human", Stowe 's work asserts that slaves too were thinking, feeling, and valuable human beings. Through her writings, Stowe presented the reader another view about the "peculiar institution"; that slavery was not only morally offensive, but a reflection of the base rational held by those who supported the act. In her novel, Stowe primarily focuses on how the treatment of slaves reflects the real attitude amongst citizens towards slavery. In Uncle Tom 's Cabin, Stowe uses the philosophies and setting of the slave owners, such as Simon Legree, the Shelby 's and Mr. Harris, along with that of northern sympathizers, including Miss Ophelia and the Birds, to assert her belief that humane treatment requires not only recognition of the dignity of another human being, but also action to preserve it. The thinking and way of life as …show more content…

While Stowe starkly contrasts various slave owners in their methods of treatment, whether "humane" or not, she emphasizes that slavery taints every action with immorality. For the northern sympathizers, Stowe likewise argues that to simply sympathize from afar the plight of the slave is not enough. Uncle Tom 's Cabin was so revolutionary because it spurred action throughout the North and South to end the "peculiar institution" of

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