Uncle Tom's Cabin Study Guide

Critical Essay #3

In the following excerpt, Ammons discusses the important role of Stowe's female characters as opponents of slavery.

The opening episode of Uncle Tom's Cabin introduces Stowe's argument by portraying mothers, black and white, as active opponents of slavery. The system itself, this first scene makes clear, is basically masculine: white men buy and sell black people while the white woman stands by powerless to intervene. This may not be the pattern in every case but, in Stowe's opinion, it is the model, as her prime and detailed treatment of it suggests. When the slave-holder, Mr. Shelby, gets himself into debt and decides that he must sell some property, he settles on Eliza's son, Harry, and Uncle Tom. Shelby, it is true, does not want to sell the pretty child or the.....

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