ipl-logo

Uncle Tom's Cabin Research Paper

1060 Words5 Pages

Slavery was the worst problem that humanity could have been through and it kept happening even after the Civil War in the United States. In the classic novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harrier Beecher Stowe, there are a lot of situations in which slavery affected many characters but they always try to find a way to get out of it, his main character Uncle Tom experienced different stages of this practice from the educated, kind, and basically good-hearted man, Mr. Shelby, to the ruthlessly evil master of the Louisiana plantation, Simon Legree. Page one of the novel finds Uncle Tom in the middle of a conversation between Mr. Shelby and Mr. Haley; he wanted to buy Tom and little Harry. "I would rather not sell him, said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully; …show more content…

Mr. Shelby’s definition of "humane" in his treatment of slaves is completely different from Haley’s. "Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain't like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right." (Stowe 5). Mr. Haley expresses his opinion about how black people feel different than whites. Shelby wants to keep the family together and Haley manages his business. Haley remembers of the mother who killed herself and her child rather than allow him to sell them apart (Stowe 5). He doesn’t actually care about the woman’s situation, just about the economic problem it could cause. "It's done!" said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and, fetching a long breath, he repeated, "It's done!" (Stowe 30). Mr. Shelby sold Uncle Tom and Harry promising that he will be treated well. According to Havard “the most dreadful part of slavery … is its outrages on the feeling …show more content…

They can't live a normal life like a white, have their own house, job because they have to fulfill the need of their master and all they have can be taken away by his master the next day. Tom encourages two women to escape from Legree's house. “I hate him! –said Legree, that night, as he sat up in his bed; I hate him! And isn't he MINE? Can't I do what I like with him?” (Stowe 427). Legree wanted to inflict some much damage to Tom's body, so he could have a loyal slave to be oversees of the plantation. “Mas'r Legree, as ye bought me, I'll be a true and faithful servant to ye. I'll give ye all the work of my hands, all my time, all my strength; but my soul I won't give up to mortal man (Stowe 397).” Tom shows his loyalty to Legree but Legree was not able to get change his faith. “O, Mas’r! don’t bring this great sin on your soul. It will hurt you more than ‘twill me! Do the worst you can, my troubles’ll be over soon; but, if ye don’t repent, yours won’t neverend!” (Stowe 397). The death of a slave would cause more trouble to Legree because he would lose some money and hands to work the field. “Ye may whip me, starve me, burn me,-it'll only send me sooner where I want to go” (Stowe 397). Tom was sure about what he wanted, and his death will make it easy. No one could stop Legree from enforcing his slaves to do what he wanted. “I

Show More
Related
1629 Words | 7 Pages

The Auld Family, Fredrick Douglass’s owners, and Dr. Flint, Harriet Jacob’s owner, are prime examples of the effects of slavery on slave-owners. Through recognizing “the white men’s power to enslave black men” (Douglass 235), Thomas Auld, Sophia Auld, and Dr. Flint lose their sense of humanity; they conform to the social roles given to them by the rest of society. Society (other people of high prestige) allows them to maintain a superior status to their slaves, so they take advantage of this

Read More
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.

Read More
523 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel, uncle Tom has a total of three masters, namely Shelby, St. Clare and Legree. Although they are the masters of Tom, but they have different personalities, and the same point. His first master, Shelby, was portrayed as a "benevolent" slave owner and a traditional southern gentleman. Although he and his wife treated their slaves are very friendly, but when Shelby faces a debt and lose its field plight, he decided to name a few slaves to the slave traders to raise much-needed funds. He can not give up the privileged life for a slave he preferred, in his world of thought good slave and his personal accessories, is his personal trading items, it is difficult to change the class nature.

Read More
524 Words | 3 Pages

“The gross injustice and cruelty to which slave is the constant victim.” (Doc.4) From frederick douglass’s personal experiences and judgement, he believes that slavery is the worst thing that any country has ever let happen and that

Read More
717 Words | 3 Pages

“I saw it coming at me, and there was nothing I could do. It hit the finger section of my glove, deflected off, smashed into the upper rim of the left lens of my glasses, glanced off my forehead, and knocked me down” (33). In this incident from Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen, Reuven Malter receives a smack in the face from a ball during a baseball game. Afterward, he undergoes surgery on his eye and spends a week in the hospital. This turning point in his life and the events that follow fully reveal Reuven’s character to the reader.

Read More
865 Words | 4 Pages

“Josiah Henson spent thirty years on a plantation in Maryland, before he escaped slavery and became a Methodist preacher, abolitionist, lecturer, and founder of a cooperative colony of former slaves in Canada. His memoirs, published in 1849, provided abolitionist and author Harriett Beecher Stowe with her model for Uncle Tom. In 1852, Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin to show slavery as a cruel and unjust institution. In the first year over 300,000 copies of her book were sold. In 1856, five years before the first shots were fired in the Civil War, over two million copies were sold in the northern United States.

Read More
467 Words | 2 Pages

Frederick Douglass throws light on the American slave system by writing about his view of slaveholders, the conditions of slavery, and how he escaped. He explained his experience with slaveholders when he states, “He was cruel enough to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough to be insensible to the voice of a reproving conscience.” (Page 32) This displays the fact that most slaveholders in the south were cruel and inhumane. Frederick Douglass shows the condition slaves had to go through, when he states,”I suffered much from hunger but much more from cold.

Read More
1105 Words | 5 Pages

This illustrates how Harriet Beecher Stowe saw the wickedness of slavery and wanted other Northerners to see the topic of slavery the way she saw it. In 1859, John Brown spoke at his sentencing about slavery. Brown describes his personal opinion on slavery. John Brown states, “If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice,” (Document J). In other words, John

Read More
1125 Words | 5 Pages

In today’s society having a slave is unacceptable, so for many people they wonder what made people once think that having a slave was right. This letter allows students and scholars to get a first-hand look on a slave holders perspective of owning slaves. It allowed readers to try to understand slaveholder’s motives for believing slavery is tolerable. Reading the Letter to an English Abolitionist with an open mind is significant because it allows readers to have a better grasp on American history when studying

Read More
1455 Words | 6 Pages

The infliction that slaves suffered. But Mrs. Stowe never mentions why did white owner did this to slaves and continue to do this as a brutal.(PG 14) Baldwin points out that Mrs.Stowe only mentions three other slaves, but leaves out other slaves from that the endured suffering from the plantation. This makes the audience questions what else happened to others and as if she is hiding other things during the time of enslavement (16). In addition, she viewed whites as pure but African American as Blacks were evil (17).

Read More
753 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

Read More
1636 Words | 7 Pages

Just Versus Unjust Violence: A Rhetorical Analysis of Violence in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Uncle Tom’s Cabin Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe present slavery in vastly distinct ways. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, author Frederick Douglass dives into a grisly world filled with bloodshed and in the middle of it a man willing to do what it takes to be educated and in control of his own person, narrated with the voice of reason. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, author Harriet Beecher Stowe depicts a variety of characters, their struggle with slavery and religion, their personal relationships, and their deep inner feelings, with no small degree of emotion and sentimentality. Douglass and Stowe’s use of

Read More
1642 Words | 7 Pages

From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped.

Read More
738 Words | 3 Pages

The Fugitive Slave Act, friction within friction, authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their escape or obstructed their search, with fines up to $1000 and six months in jail. Due to these stricter laws, Harriet Beecher Stowe became enraged at the fact that she was being forced to heed to a law and practice she deemed immoral and unjust. Stowe reciprocated with her novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Her novel elicited feelings for human empathy, it showed northerners how slaves were really treated. Also, it solidified for Northerners, who may have been on the fence about slavery, that they were strictly against this inhumane treatment of fellow humans.

Read More
652 Words | 3 Pages

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the dehumanization of slaves often occurs, as plantation owners view slaves as undeserving of humane treatment in order to uphold power and warrant unjust practices. Limiting knowledge for African

Read More

More about Uncle Tom's Cabin Research Paper

Related Topics

Open Document