Lifeless

Love, what is it? Is there a specific definition? To each person love can mean something else but, throughout the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe love causing pain is a recurring motif. The more one opens themselves up to another person, the more vulnerable they become to getting hurt from that second person. Throughout Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe portrays in her characters the desire for love, but due to the fact that the world is full of tragedies, the pain of those in dire situations is deepened by the loss of their loved ones.

Eliza, Mrs. Shelby's personal maid servant is married to George Harris, a slave from the next plantation over. Together they have a son named Harry. On the Shelby plantation Eliza has always been treated well, she is brought up as a daughter to Mrs. Shelby, given the same education as a white child, and given nice accommodations. One day Eliza finds out that her master Mr. Shelby has agreed to sell her precious son Harry to a malevolent slave trader named Mr. Haley. Although Eliza loves the Shelby's very much and considers them her family she must do what's best for her son to keep him safe. Though she feels obligated to the Shelby's, and it hurts her to have to leave them she feels more obligated to her son and his imminent needs. Therefore Eliza stealthily sneaks away in the middle of the night in order to save her son.

"No tear dropped over that pillow; in such straits as these, the heart has no tears to give,-it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in silence. She took a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote, hastily, "O Missis! dear Missis! don't think me ungrateful,-don't think hard of me, any way,-1 heard all you and master said to-night. I am going to try to save my boy-you will not blame me! God bless and reward you for all your kindness!" (Stowe, 40-41).

Eliza is pained by having to leave the Shelby's because it is where she grew up, it holds her entire past, but while it pains her to leave her home, Eliza's love for her son is stronger than her love for her past home, where she had been treated so well. Because Eliza loved her son so much she would do anything to save him, even if it meant uprooting herself and causing the suffering of not knowing what would happen to her or her son in the future. Now, all the decisions are up to Eliza which is something she's never had to deal with before.

Later on in the book we come across another character who is hurt by the love he has for another human being. Augustine St. Clare a wealthy slave owner has only one thing in his life that he truly loves and cherishes, which is his daughter, Eva. Eva and her father are extremely close and she brings him great pleasure and joy. But as Eva begins to mature mentally and begins to understand more of what goes on in the world, it taxes her physically. Eva's health begins to wane and she becomes deathly ill. She knows she will soon die but her father refuses to believe so and all her talk of death pains him. He tells her everyday how much he loves her and all that she means to him. "When you are dead, Eva," said St. Clare, passionately, "O, child, don't talk to me so! You are all I have on earth" (Stowe, 316-317). Due to St. Clare's lack of religiosity he has no true meaning to his life and therefore has nothing to cherish but his daughter. Because she is the only thing in the world that St. Clare loves he is all the more devastated by her death, and is not able to overcome the loss of that which