Uncle Tom's Cabin Overview & Chapter Abstracts for Teachers

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter. They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of characters and objects. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of the text for either a student or teacher.

Chapter 1 Abstract

* Mr. Shelby, a Kentucky plantation owner and a "gentlemen," and Mr. Haley, an uncouth, unsophisticated, racist-to-the-bone man from farther south than Kentucky have a discussion on Mr. Shelby's plantation porch about Shelby's unwilling, but necessary, decision to sell his esteemed slave Tom to Shelby.
* In the course of discussion it...
(read more)