ipl-logo

Uncle Tom's Cabin Abolitionism

752 Words4 Pages

No slave narrative had such a profound effect on the abolitionist movement in American literature as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Harriet Beecher Stowe, a prominent abolitionist, wrote “the novel [to help] push abolitionism from the margins to the mainstream” (Baym and Levine 806), and it did, as the novel “thus moved the nation closer to Civil War” (Baym and Levine 806). Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” symbolized the many aspects that was wrong with slavery through a heart-warming nature. In the beginning of the novel, it symbolized the bribery, but also heartless nature of slave traders. In the beginning Mr. Haley, a slave trader, bribes Mr. Shelby, a slaveholder, to sell him a young enslaved boy named Harry and part him away …show more content…

Shelby is uncomfortable with this idea as he stated, “’I would rather not sell him,’ said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully; ‘the fact is, sir, I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother sir’” (Stowe 810). The novel also symbolized the many fears that slaves had to endure when trying to escape to freedom. Eliza’s husband George is the first to escape from their family to Canada. Eliza, in fear that Harry will be sold, soon decides to follow her husband’s path and escape to Canada for freedom. Eliza and Harry’s journey to freedom was long and full of fear, as they feared that slave catchers might catch them and have them returned or sold. As stated, “[they] went, leaving one familiar object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening daylight found [them] many a long mile from all traces of any familiar objects” (Stowe 819). Eliza eventually meets back up with George at a Quaker facility where after that, they find their way to Canada and eventually escape to freedom. Most importantly though, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” symbolized a good slave, one who loved his master, and his master’s family, and a slave who was most definitely well respective to his master. The main character, a slave named Tom, was the symbol of all of these characteristics in the

Show More
Related

  • How Does Harriet Beach Stowe Communicate The Horrors Of Slavery

    633 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harriet Beach Stowe used the novel Uncle Toms Cabin to communicate the horrors of slavery. Bringing attention to the thousands of civilians who had not been sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. Its depiction of slavery immediately increased the tensions between slaveholders in the south and non-slaveholding northerners. Uncle Toms Cabin focuses on the struggles of a slave. Tom who was sold numerous times as a slave.

    Read More

  • Arthur Shelby's Relationship With His Slaves

    1451 Words  | 6 Pages

    Arthur Shelby the owner of a farm in Kentucky has gotten into deep debt. His debt situation has forced him into the position of having to sell some of his slaves. Mr. Shelby and his wife Emily have good relationships with their slaves. They try to show kindness as well as affection to these men and women who work on their farm. The two slaves that Mr. Shelby thinks about selling are Uncle Tom and Eliza’s son Harry.

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Dbq Essay

    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

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Dbq

    184 Words  | 1 Pages

    The extract from ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852, the abolitionists used many methods and reasons in Document B to stop slavery. As the abolitionists came from various different communities, including white anti-slavery, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionists argued that slavery had many harsh conditions. Therefore, slavery violated the natural rights of all people for equality. However, as the novel was a bestseller during the 1850’s, there must have been some considerable interest in the issue of slavery, due to some facts that were added to create a more entertaining story. Therefore, abolitionists used some kind of mass media to spread a message throughout the entire country, eventually reaching out to the

    Read More

  • Shelby And Stoowe Analysis

    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

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Huckleberry Finn

    493 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Mark Twain’s famous Novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an exciting story that is told by a 13-year-old boy who ventures into a perilous expedition down the daunting Mississippi River on a puny wooden raft. The story's sensationalism sometimes makes Huck's journey seem unbelievable. Throughout his novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain uses several rhetorical strategies to portray the institution of slavery in America during the 1850s. To start off, Mark Twain published his book, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, twenty years after the civil war.

    Read More

  • Overview Of Incidents In The Life A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

    1605 Words  | 7 Pages

    Harriet Jacobs writes, “No pen can give an adequate description of all [the] pervading corruption of slavery.” In the book, Incidents in the Life a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs recounts her time as a slave before escaping the cruelties of slavery to freedom. This quote from the book outlines the intelligence Harriet Jacobs has about the torment in slavery. In the beginning of the book the preface and the editor’s introduction to the book outline Harriet Jacobs story. Both the preface and the author’s introduction give a realness to Harriet’s story before reading the text.

    Read More

  • Uncle Toms Cabin Major Works Data Sheet

    1621 Words  | 7 Pages

    his masters. In terms of Eliza’s family they went through a lot to get to Canada such as going through the Quaker settlement and George when he was in the hotel. The family eventually was reunited to gain their freedom in Canada. When it came to Tom, he was a lot different than Eliza, he was a very honest man and did not run even when he had the option to at the beginning of the story. He instead intended to have his freedom granted by his masters, which was almost granted to him twice.

    Read More

  • The Mexican-American Civil War

    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

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Sparknotes

    1563 Words  | 7 Pages

    Uncle Tom’s Cabin opens up at a small farm in Kentucky owned by debt ridden Arthur Shelby. As our story begins, Mr. Shelby is selling Uncle Tom, the most honest and kindhearted slave on the farm with a wife and three kids, and Harry Harris, Eliza and George Harris’s only child, to the slave trader Dan Haley. Although Mr. and Mrs. Shelby have always had a very loving relationship with all of their slaves, Mr. Shelby believed that it was more important to earn his way out of debt and only sell two slaves than to have his farm and all of his slaves taken away. When Eliza, Mrs. Shelby’s maid, overheard Mr. Shelby explaining to Mrs. Shelby the negotiation that he had to make to sell Eliza’s only child Harry, she made the decision to flee to

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Dialectical Journal

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even with Eva’s death in the previous chapters of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the end of this book has been more impacting than any chapters so far. The treatment of slaves, and yet the kind and Christian actions of Tom, have touched me. I am grateful for this book and the truths about my own country that it has revealed to me. At first, we see Tom with his new slaveholder, Legree, who proves himself to be a cruel and unforgiving man towards his slaves. Tom and Emmeline are taken back to his home, where even the slaves are mean to one another.

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Thesis

    958 Words  | 4 Pages

    Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin was, and still is today, an important well-known novel. The nineteenth-century novel contains the lives, experiences, and views of the characters. It tells the harsh and cruel living conditions of slaves. The novel tells the brutality of slaves and changed the way many people viewed slavery. The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, inspired the many people.

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin Sparknotes

    492 Words  | 2 Pages

    He is kind to all of his black slaves and they all enjoy working for him. As of recently though, he has run into financial trouble and needs to sell one or two of his slaves. He chooses to sell Uncle Tom and a small boy named Harry. Harry’s mother, Elizah, overhears the conversation and decides to run away to Canada with her son. Elizah trying to persuade Tom to run away with her.

    Read More

  • Uncle Toms Cabin Research Paper

    873 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the points I agreed on with the reviewers for Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the 19th-century was the fact that it was called “The Greatest Book of its Kind,” while talking about the true horror of slavery and also keeping the readers interested with a captivating story line. On May 20th of 1852, The New York Independent, published by Jewett & Co. Advertisement, all-around praised Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel for selling 50,000 copies in only sixty days [eight weeks] and noticed how the press sent forth positive column after column of reviews instead of ‘puffs of half a finger’s length,’ meaning hardly any attention would have been given to the new popular book, while mentioning uplifting quotes such as, “We look upon the writing of this book

    Read More

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin And The Testimony Of Sarah M.

    578 Words  | 3 Pages

    In both documents the authors describe how and why they see slavery negatively. In the early nineteenth century, author Harriet Stowe was born into an influential and religious family. Her father, Reverend Beecher, helped “shift from the established churches of the colonial period to the new era of denominational competition”. Growing up in the free state of Maine, Stowe was not accustomed to the harshness of slavery.

    Read More

More about Uncle Tom's Cabin Abolitionism

Open Document