ipl-logo

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

885 Words4 Pages

Booker T. Washington says, “You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.” Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, demonstrates this idea by showing the tragic condition of slaves and the slave system in the South; she portrays that the owner cannot free himself from his own sins until he frees his slaves. In Stowe’s fictional, yet accurate depiction of slavery, she also showcases the effects and power of women in the system; characters such as Cassy, Eliza, and Mrs. Shelby choose their own path by protecting themselves, others, or, in the instance of Cassy, their character.
Both Mrs. Shelby and Eliza act as Stowe’s vehicle for demonstrating the value of one person showing kindness to another. After Mr. Shelby sells …show more content…

St. Clare did, Cassy strives to guard the remnants of her character and morality. In her escape from Legree’s farm, Cassy remains in “despairing firmness,” but afterwards gains a “gentle trust” (342, 364). Her transformation shows the importance of the decision -- especially for the preservation of her “goodness.” This includes her ability to show kindness and her hope of possible freedom, both of which the slave system has almost ripped from her completely. As a result of her choice, Emmeline escapes bondage along with Cassy and slavery no longer keeps her from freedom. In addition, Cassy’s choice and its result demonstrate that risking oneself for good may lead to a more favorable situation for that person. Soon after their escape, Cassy demonstrates this idea once again when she interrupts Master George’s and Madame de Thoux’s conversation to inquire about the original place from which Shelby purchases Eliza; the answer she receives allows her to conclude that Eliza is her daughter and Cassy decides to search for her (361). Here, Cassy’s choice permits her to lead the remainder of her life with family that she had thought she lost long ago. Secondly, it allows her to regain another aspect of her goodness: her happiness. In a short period of time and with intentional choices, Cassy fills the apertures in her

Show More
Related
1059 Words | 5 Pages

The South’s Secession The south seceding was a big turning point in history. It marked a new chapter, and not a very good one. The south seceded with a number of “grievances”. These “grievances” included a number of disagreements on major issues.

Read More
57 Words | 1 Pages

In 1914, the Harriet Beecher Stowe School was established. This school was organized by an African American school teacher. It was a segregated school for African Americans. The segregated school was a controversial issue for many African American leaders within the community, however, it remained an all-black school until it closed in 1962 (The Early History,

Read More
842 Words | 4 Pages

Night by Elie Wiesel is the first book that would be saved because it tells about the Holocaust, has great examples of emotional appeal, and is one of the best, if not the best, example of a historical tragedy. Telling about the Holocaust is the most important aspect of this book, as the Holocaust continues to be one of the worst historic tragedies in the world. The easiest way to prevent a similar occurrence from happening is by never letting it be forgotten in the first place. This book would be memorized to make sure that it would not be forgotten and hopefully prevent it from happening again. Reading this book makes the reader realize just how fortunate he is/was to not live during that time period, and also helps one understand just how

Read More
1823 Words | 8 Pages

Who is Harriet B. Stowe and what was her impact on the 1800’s? Well Harriet Beecher was born June 14th, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. Harriet was one of the ten born to the well known preacher Lyman Beecher and his wife, Roxana Foote. She was nicknamed “Hattie” by her seven other brothers. During her young age, Harriet was exposed to huge debates in the state of Mississippi if it should be a slave state or not.

Read More
834 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout American history, women have been treated as if they were of a lesser importance, this being ultimately true when speaking of slave women. With the feelings and beliefs of women being tossed to the side, it is easy to see how women enslaved could easily lose their dignity during slavery. This fight for sanity is prevalent in Harriet Ann Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl as well as Mark Twain’s “A True Story.” Through the never ending hope, the importance of family, and the inner fight slave women had, the women in these particular works were able to maintain a spark of faith to get them through each day.

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

The novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was written in 1852, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a story about slave owners seeing the cruelties of slavery. Before Stowe’s novel, abolitionism was unpopular, even in the North. The book changed everything. The North was shocked by the truth about slavery, and quickly adopted an abolitionist’s view.

Read More
643 Words | 3 Pages

When people talk about slavery they more or less tend to label the good ones who were against slavery into the North and then the monsters as being the Southerners. Stowe showed the readers that this isn’t true, and that you can’t just point and blame that easily. Through Tom’s owners, Mr. Shelby and St. Clare, Stowe showed us the reality of kindness that some Southern slave owners possessed. Both of these slave owners believed it wrong to harm their slaves and to treat them with any type of cruelty. St. Clare tended to share his opinions on slavery, and Stowe used this character to show how many Southerners thought slavery to be an act of iniquity, but were too stubborn to try and change the ways of their society.

Read More
739 Words | 3 Pages

"Uncle Tom 's Cabin" was abolitionist propaganda, but it was also a brilliant novel that intertwined the stories of a host of memorable characters: the long-suffering slave Uncle Tom, the sadistic overseer Simon Legree, the defiant fugitive George Harris, the antic slave girl Topsy, the conscience-stricken slave owner Augustine St. Clare, and a teeming cast of abolitionists, Southerners and African-Americans. By presenting an array of emotive story lines—e.g., the bonding of Uncle Tom with St. Clare 's saintly daughter Eva, Tom 's fatal persecution at a Louisiana plantation, and the dramatic flight of the Harris family to freedom in the North—the author Harriet Beecher Stowe rendered American slavery as a soul-destroying system of grinding injustice and, for the first time in American literature, depicted slaves as complex, heroic and emotionally nuanced individuals. Did you like it? Why or why not?

Read More
492 Words | 2 Pages

I read the book, named “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It’s about the slavery in America. This book became one reason of caused American Civil War. Because many people read this book and aware that slavery is serious problem. George Shelby is a free, slave-owning white man.

Read More
2044 Words | 9 Pages

Katherine Diep English 3H Mrs. Kent 12 December 2015 James employs symbols to characterize Isabel to be an educated independent person. When Isabel is talking with Mrs. Touchett about Isabel’s grandmother’s house where they are discussing the value of that house: “‘I like places in which things have happened – even if they are sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has been full of life’” (25).

Read More
847 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine reading about the cruel, harsh realities of the lives of slaves and going through a rollercoaster of emotions while reading a novel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is “a work of literary fiction that seeks to elucidate a social problem with a primary or secondary purpose of functioning as propaganda,” (“Common Description of the ‘Social Protest Novel’ Literary Genre”) otherwise known as a social protest novel. Despite Uncle Tom’s Cabin connecting to the content that is learned during US History I, the book should not be in the curriculum for students to read because To begin, throughout the novel, Stowe subtly hints at the fact that slavery grew as a result of capitalism and leans more toward supporting socialism. For instance,

Read More
1068 Words | 5 Pages

Through simple but plentiful literary elements in “To Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee crafts complex commentary on human relationships by means of showing readers the reactions and opinions of divergent characters in the novel when placed in situations and events that challenge their beliefs. Using primarily dialogue and prose, Lee displays the fragileness of community when individual values challenge societal beliefs. First, critical moments like the trial of Tom Robinson are places where Lee emphasizes the reactions of characters through dialogue. For example, the group of old white men sitting in the stands, feeling displeasure as ¨Atticus aims to defend him.

Read More
247 Words | 1 Pages

The Civil War sharply interrupted American literary activity. No longer could Americans look to the future with optimism; the events surrounding the Civil War prompted them to assess their world directly and honestly. The attack on Fort Sumter didn’t start the Civil War in 1861; the war began 10 years earlier, with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” At least, that’s what Abraham Lincoln claimed, when he met Stowe in 1862 and reportedly greeted her as “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” Many scholars maintain that no book has ever had a more direct and powerful influence on American history than Stowe’s novel, which inflamed opposition to slavery in the North and

Read More
1902 Words | 8 Pages

“Courage doesn 't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’” - Mary Anne Radmacher. Through this quote one can see the advantages of real courage. One can really understand the true meaning of courage by reading the books To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The book by Harper Lee is written by a 9 year old’s perspective named Scout.

Read More
532 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout Harriet Beecher Stowe’s writing, she inserted Christianity in almost every character. In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, all the characters who believe in Christianity have show how their thoughts conflict with those slavery laws. Their thinking of Christian Ethics are not for but against slavery. Also, all the Christian characters reflected that the Bible was changed for justify white people’s sin at that time. Elisa is a female slave in Mr. Shelby’s plantation, and she was converted to Christian.

Read More

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

Related Topics

Open Document