-
Essay / Uncle Tom's Cabin - 758
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, to inform her readers that slavery was wrong in order to persuade Northerners to violate the slave law. Fugitive Slaves of 1850 by depicting detailed descriptions of slave suffering, family separations, brutal masters, and the act of good-hearted human beings being harshly punished. Stowe describes the evils of slavery by incorporating numerous scenes of slave suffering into his novel. The suffering is not only physical, but also mental, for example when George Harris loses all hope, because his master has decided to move him from the factory to the cruelest work on the farm (57). Another example is when Uncle Tom begins to hesitate about his religion, because he gets tired of his master's harassment and hard work (552). Uncle Tom is tested on his faith from the moment he becomes one of Legree's slaves. Uncle Tom is often beaten almost to death by two overseers, because he refuses to whip a woman named Lucy (507). The cause of Uncle Tom's death was due to Legree and the overseers beating Tom severely again, for not also telling his master where the runaway slaves had escaped (583). George Harris and Tom were whipped intensely for committing no wrongdoing, which at times caused them to lose hope. Men weren't the only ones to suffer; Stowe also incorporated scenes of women dealing with afflictions into her novel. Many enslaved women were used as prostitutes. A woman named Prune was used to raise children for her master to sell in a slave market (323). In another type of situation, a woman named Cassy was his slave-mistress, until Legree purchased from Emmeline a beautiful young girl who would become the new mistress (490). Stowe points out that these women had to suffer in the middle of paper......the labor is painful, but also endure a wicked master. Finally, Stowe describes that slavery is wrong by describing the moral qualities of slaves. A good example is Uncle Tom, a hard-working, trustworthy, and good-hearted man who was sold into slavery (42). Uncle Tom was also a religious man who truly believed in God, and because of his beliefs, he obeyed his master except when it was immoral (507). Although Tom is a very down-to-earth man, he was still beaten because he did not give in to the misdeeds of his master Legree when he told him to beat a woman (507). This is why Stowe describes through Uncle Tom that slaves are human beings with wonderful characteristics. The author wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin intentionally to provide information about the evil of slavery, depicting scenes of harsh treatment, separations from family members, cruel masters, and good moral character . among slaves.