Uncle Tom's Cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe: Character Analysis

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book is about a man named Tom who works for plantation owner. His plantation owner orders him to whip a slave named Lucy but he refuses and gets punished. This novel deeply affected the feelings of the north and it greatly changed peoples views of slavery. Her book angered southern plantation owners who own slaves. Even though not all plantation owners treated their slaves with cruelty or treated them as property.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography told through the eyes of Frederick Douglass himself. Douglass was born as a slave; he was an African-American abolitionist and orator. In the book, Douglass highlights numerous cases of irony associated with slaveholding. Throughout his narrative, Douglass examines the irony of religious slaveholders and one of his non-religious slaveholder. He also speaks of the irony in which slaves are treated below animals. Lastly, Douglass’ explains his thought on slavery and from what he says it becomes ironic.

Colonists began to build a settlement in North America after gaining their independence from Great Britain. Slavery in North America began when African slaves were brought to Jamestown in order to aid in the production of crops that would later fuel the economic establishment of North America. The African Slave trade gained prominence in the seventeenth century when African American slaves began to replace the bulk of indentured servants. Eventually slaves and their decedents made up majority of the population in some states. In fact, “New World plantation agriculture came to depend on the labor of enslaved workers…” (Created Equal 80). Though being enslaved as an African American in the New World was inevitable, most slaves were determined to fight back against such injustice even if it meant using violence to gain their freedom.

Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader. By appealing to the emotions of the reader, Frederick Douglass can build his argument of how awful slavery was and how the slave owners used Christianity to justify what they did.

Harriet Beecher Stowe covered many topics throughout her book "Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly". Stowe's purpose of this book was to provide readers with an insight into the atrocities of slavery and the kindness of owners of the time. She argues this through a few lines of effort, women's role during this time period, and religion being twisted and bent to the whim of the states to beautify slavery ultimately portraying how evil slavery truly was.

The idiosyncratic style Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass depicts the discriminatory actions of postcolonial slave owners in the southern United States, which reflects their greed for unpaid labor on their plantations. He employs the metaphor of the book that their masters prohibited them from owning by law throughout the memoir to demonstrate the avarice that drives white slave owners to turn a darker-skinned, intelligent being into a machine for personal benefit for centuries after the colonization of America. Also, the irony further displays the power of greed by expressing the slaveholder’s uncivilized method of forcing another human out of civilization. Furthermore, his use of a paradox of the use of pure religious beliefs to justify a slaveholder’s inhumane treatment reveals their rapacious actions that contradict the teachings of the church.

The romanticism was the response to the Industrial Age. That movement began in America from 1820 ’s to 1870’s. Washington Irving was part of that movement which began in America after Revolutionary War. They tried to separate them from the rest of the world and create a country as a nation. They used their chance of individuality and creativity, and they addressed economic social and many other concerns by their writings. While Washington Irving was writing “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), it was the time when Great Britain reached independence and all over the world were going many changes. In this story, he described the small village with its rural life where everything remained the same far from the immigration and improvement of the

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,

In the narrative, his master speaks of why it is not a good idea to teach slaves to read. It reads, “Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.” This quote suggests that as long as slaves live in uneducated ignorance, that they will be happy with the situation they are in. The master will convince himself that he is doing no wrong, as the slaves are perfectly satisfied with their lives in bonds. In Huckleberry Finn, they say, “Everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they’d make Jim feel it all the time.” This suggests that Jim should not only be content being a slave, but happy. All things considered, Mrs. Watson would be considered a “good” mistress and everyone would expect Jim to be ashamed of himself for running away. In reality, there is no need for Jim to be grateful that Mrs. Watson didn’t brutalize him like other slaveholders, it isn’t a competition of which slaves were more oppressed. They were all slaves, and they were all treated as such. Believing that the slaves were happy with the conditions they were forced to live in is

Furthermore, both ideals showcase easing one’s guilt to continue the ruthless treatment of slaves. Dehumanization, the most impactful theme in Douglass’s narrative, provides an image of the horrors of slavery, as the barbarity Douglass experiences while working for Mr. Covey shows how slaves were dehumanized by excessive labor and punishments. Douglass states, “I was broken in my body, soul, and spirit...behold a man turned into a brute” (63). Moreover, the laws involving treatment of slaves showed that many viewed slaves undeserving of basic rights, as “killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime” (34). The theme implements readers with the powerful insight that many would be unable to perpetuate the cruelty needed to keep slavery intact without

In the nineteenth century, slavery was already an established practice in the United States, especially in the Southern states, and it was accompanied by a series of legislations enacted for the regulation of the slave activities and the conduct in relation to the slaves and blacks who were freed from it. Enslaved Africans were a source of menial laborers to the Southerners in order for them to raise the states labor-intensive commercial crops such as sugar, rice, cotton and tobacco. However, owning a slave did not merely mean free labor but the whites also used to the slaves as means of exhibiting their social prestige and political influence in the society. The slave owners encouraged marriages amongst the slaves intending them to be less keen to revolt or run away. However the irony remained that despite having families, the threat of violence, sexual abuse and separation from their loved ones were constantly faced by the slaves from their masters.

Published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin influenced a generation of Americans and developed their opposition to slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. This novel aided the abolitionist in their endeavor of expelling slavery. As an activist and abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe helped provoke the Civil War when she published the controversial Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

As a fiction writer, Mark Twain, whose original name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, stands apart as a comic genius. In America, Mark Twain had popularized this new genre through two of his well- known novels. One is 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ' and the other 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn '. Mark Twain 's idea of a boy character is based on the picture of an average American boy. The American boy, by nature, is enterprising and mischievous, not a reserved character like his counterpart in England. His counterpart is bolder and hence a more interesting character. Mark Twain 's portrayal of the twin boy characters - Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn is actually a portrayal of the American boys in general. This does not mean that American boys are not good or obedient.

“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. Throughout the book she discovers many mockingbirds in her society and the trouble they have to live through. This helps the reader identify many subtopics in the book like prejudice vs tolerance, compassion vs ignorance and more importantly courage vs cowardice. She deciphers the true meaning of courage vs cowardice when she meets the mystery character, Boo Radley. The book by Sherman Alexie too has similar themes and settings. It’s based on the struggles Indian’s face in America due to their race. The book uses a teenagers perspective to exhibit these struggles. This helps teenagers connect to the book as even they might have perspectives similar to of Junior’s (main character). Both the authors use similar literary devices like external conflict, internal conflict and characterization to keep the reader interested in the text. In both the texts one can see that the thematic idea conveyed is that courageous people don’t roar about their strength, but they use it to benefit the community as a whole.

Another common topic that is discussed throughout each book is religion. Each author uses religion, in different ways, to prove the overall purpose of their book. Stowe first writes about religion in saying, "Tom, ' says I to him, 'I trust you, because I think you 're a Christian -- I know you wouldn 't cheat" (Stowe, 44). From the very first chapter, the readers know that people view Tom as a Christian. It 's surprising to think of someone who has gone through slavery, yet still can have a faith in God. This gives the reader the interpretation that Tom doesn 't believe the Bible support slavery, because if it did he wouldn 't be so a Christian. Stowe uses pathos in this excerpt, especially when she makes the point that Tom 's owner knows Tom will come back. Not only does it make the readers realize that Tom is very loyal, it also shows how much power slave owners had over the slaves. The idea that Tom 's slaveowner trusts that this boy, Tom, will come back even when he has the chance to run away shows the amount of power the slaveowner has over Tom. Although Eastman writes about religion throughout her novel, she also uses the Bible to justify slavery: "A writer on Slavery has no difficulty in tracing back its origin. There is also the advantage of finding it, with its continued history, and the laws given by God to govern his own institution, in the Holy Bible" (Eastman, preface). In this quote, Eastman is making a point that completely contradicts Stowe 's