One of Stowe’s goals of this novel is to convince her audience to have sympathy and feeling for slaves. She does this by using her female characters who disagree with their husbands on the subject of slavery creating a parallel of opinion between the men and women in the story. “Why not make a pecuniary sacrifice? I’m willing to bear my part of the inconvenience. O, Mr. Shelby, I have tried—tried most faithfully, as a Christian woman should—to do my duty to these poor, simple, dependent creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched over them, and know all their little cares and joys, for years; and how can I ever hold up my head again among them, if, for the sake of a little paltry gain, we sell such a faithful, excellent, confiding creature as poor Tom, and tear from him in a moment all we have taught him to love and value? I have taught them the duties of the family, of parent and child, and husband and wife; and how can I bear to have this open acknowledgment that we care for no tie, no duty, no relation, however sacred, compared with money? I have talked with Eliza about her boy—her duty to him as a Christian mother, to watch over him, pray for him, and bring him up in a Christian way; and now what can I say, if you tear him away, and sell him, soul and body, to a profane, unprincipled man, just to save a little money? I have told her that one soul is worth more than all the money in the world; and how will she believe me when she sees us turn round and sell her child?—sell him, perhaps, to certain ruin of body and soul!” (Stowe, Ch. 5). In this passage Mrs. Shelby is upset that her husband is willing to sell the slaves for monetary reasons. She thinks it’s immoral and not Christian. She has taught them and raised them and even given Eliza a proper wedding. She is has very strong feelings for the slaves she owns. While Mr. Shelby was reluctant to sell Tom and Harry he was still over run by his greed. The fact that Mrs. Shelby has grown so fond of Tom, Harry and some of the other slaves shows her sympathy and emotional care for them unlike Mr. Shelby who is more concerned about keeping his monetary status.
Again in the second section of the reading we see the Birds’ argument and how there is more emotion from the female and more duty reasoning from the man. “You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures! It’s a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can’t give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!” (Stowe, Ch. 9). Mrs. Bird is upset because she knows again refusing to aide those in need is unchristian, and her husband has just voted for the fugitive slave act which prohibits this. He claimed it was his “painful Duty” (Stowe, Ch. 9). We can see she is disregarding his place in government and what the people want for what is morally right. She again, like Mrs. Shelby, has sympathy and feelings for the slaves. One of Stowe’s main reasons for this novel was to persuade people to have sympathy and feeling for slaves, not necessarily to end it all together. You can see through these two women characters she is trying to get this message across. Stowe targeted women as her audience; she picked these two characters to embody the domesticated women of the time,and the message she wanted to convey. Her hope in doing this was to reach these women in real life and for them to use their moral reasoning to try to convince their husbands to do the same since this was one of the only ways they could influence society at the time.