#2

In chapter 3 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin there’s a sad scene that Harriet Stowe writes about to highlight the personal problems that slaves have to go through also, not just physical pain. “‘Well, lately Mas’r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I’ve got proud notions from you; and he says he won’t let me come here any more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would sell me down river.’ ‘Why—but you were married to me, by the minister, as much as if you’d been a white man!’ said Eliza, simply. ‘Don’t you know a slave can’t be married? There is no law in this country for that; I can’t hold you for my wife, if he chooses to part us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you,—why I wish I’d never been born; it would have been better for us both,—it would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born. All this may happen to him yet!'” Even George’s and Eliza’s right to marriage and love had been taken away from them. This passage shows the difficulties slaves had to go through and how dangerous it was for them and their lives to be dependent on their master and his desires. This scene gets to the readers heart and makes them empathetic with the struggle George and Eliza face in not being permitted to love each other freely. Harriet Stowe used emotions effectively in this chapter.

Another scene similar to this occurs in chapter 10. “Tom sat by, with his Testament open on his knee, and his head leaning upon his hand;—but neither spoke. It was yet early, and the children lay all asleep together in their little rude trundle-bed. Tom, who had, to the full, the gentle, domestic heart, which woe for them! has been a peculiar characteristic of his unhappy race, got up and walked silently to look at his children. ‘It’s the last time,’ he said. Aunt Chloe did not answer, only rubbed away over and over on the coarse shirt, already as smooth as hands could make it; and finally setting her iron suddenly down with a despairing plunge, she sat down to the table, and “lifted up her voice and wept.’ ‘S’pose we must be resigned; but oh Lord! how ken I? If I know’d anything whar you ‘s goin’, or how they’d sarve you! Missis says she’ll try and ‘deem ye, in a year or two; but Lor! nobody never comes up that goes down thar! They kills ’em! I’ve hearn ’em tell how dey works ’em up on dem ar plantations.’ ‘There’ll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is here.” “Well,” said Aunt Chloe, “s’pose dere will; but de Lord lets drefful things happen, sometimes. I don’t seem to get no comfort dat way.’ ‘I’m in the Lord’s hands,” said Tom; “nothin’ can go no furder than he lets it;—and thar’s one thing I can thank him for. It’s me that’s sold and going down, and not you nur the chil’en. Here you’re safe;—what comes will come only on me; and the Lord, he’ll help me,—I know he will.'” In this scene Tom is preparing to leave his family for what might be forever because he’s been sold to a different slave owner. It shows how vulnerable slaves were, their whole lives could be turned upside down and families could be torn apart so suddenly and unexpectedly. Anyone with any humanity could easily sense the evil and pain, slaves had to live with and with fear of. The author is very good at appealing to a person’s emotions by painting vivid pictures of families being destroyed by slavery and everything it carries.