About the Author
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s handling of characters, while unusual by today’s standards is quite deft. She often introduced her characters by allowing them to reveal themselves to the reader through their actions and dialogue. At the same time, Stowe took great liberties with some of her characters by suddenly forcing them into molds that suited her. This occurred when either the ‘sentimental’ format of the novel required it or the need to fortify her arguments arose.
The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is written in a sentimental and melodramatic format common in the nineteenth century. As such, there were certain liberties given to the author by readers who fully expected to have their emotions played and who wanted to cry over the characters in their books.
Stowe’s handling of her character’s can be attributed to her education and intelligence combined with her religious ideals. Her education and intelligence gave her the ability to describe her characters through their actions but her religious conviction allowed her to wield an author’s omniscient role to her advantage and she would often over-step her characters in an attempt to maker her point.
The Two Main Characters
Uncle Tom: Uncle Tom is the Christian hero of the novel. Literary critics and historians have scorned the character of Uncle Tom as being overly pious, passive, and subservient. In truth, Stowe intended him to model the ideal Christian. A believer who was strong in his convictions and could turn the other cheek secure in the knowledge of unseen rewards. Happily, recent revisioning of the character has compared him to Ghandi who turned the other cheek and over-turned an entire empire through passive resistance.
Quotes by Tom
“If I must be sold, or all the people on the place, and everything go to rack, why, let me be sold. I s'pose I can b'ar it as well as any on 'em.”
“We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs,” said Tom.
“No, no, Missis! I've lost everything,--wife and children, and home, and a kind Mas'r,--and he would have set me free, if he'd only lived a week longer; I've lost everything in this world, and it's clean gone, forever,--and now I can't lose Heaven, too; no, I can't get to be wicked, besides all!”
Eliza Harris: Stowe introduces Eliza to us in a chapter titled The Mother. She is a beautiful mulatto woman who has been hand-raised by her mistress and is a household favorite. She has an equally beautiful son named Harry that she conceived with her husband George Harris. When a slave merchant purchases Uncle Tom, Eliza, and Harry, Eliza flees with her son. Her flight takes her to Canada. One of the more memorable scenes from the book occurs during Eliza’s flight when she crosses a thawing river by jumping from ice chunk to ice chunk.
Quotes by Eliza
“...tell him to be as good as he can, and try and meet me in the kingdom of heaven.”
To read more about characters from Uncle Tom’s Cabin read, Stowe’s Principal Characters.
Beecher-Stowe, Harriet. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. ISBN 0-394-60527-6
