Summary Of Uncle Tom's Cabin

The novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written in 1852 and became a very popular and controversial piece of literature. Later it was adapted into a play due to its widespread controversy during a time when slavery was accepted in America’s history. The novel and play sought to display the horrors of slavery. The play has a wide range of characters, representing a wide spectrum of people during that time period. This is able to demonstrate the humanness of the slaves which challenges the entire argument of slavery being that one race of human is better than another based on the color of their skin because in reality, they’re all human regardless. It also demonstrates the inhumanity of some of the slave owners and the compassion of other slave owners who treated their slaves well. This presented the question of how good can someone really be if they own slaves in the first place?

This presents a topic that was rather uncomfortable during the time period of slavery, that slaves were capable of being good and displaying more humanity than their owners. While Mr. Shelby is a good man he ends up selling Tom and one of his child slaves, Harry. The loyalty that Tom has shown him does not outweigh the debt that Mr. Shelby has to pay, nor does Mr. Shelby seem to have much difficulty in separating a mother and her child. To protect her son, just as any mother would regardless of race, Eliza takes Harry and runs away with him. Tom however, decides to go without a fight and throughout the play is able to stay strong. When he is sold to Mr. Legree Tom tries to help out the other slaves on the plantation and is whipped for doing so. When Cassy and Emmeline devise a plan to escape Tom does not reveal their plan despite the cruel beatings he receives from Mr. Legree. This speaks great volumes of Tom’s humanity and strength more so than those who owned him and claimed they were