Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

By: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Throughout the book Uncle Tom's Cabin the setting changes.It starts out in Kentucky.Tom is later sold to New Orleans and then to a plantation up the Red River.At each new place Tom goes his faith in God is put to the test,but Tom stays pious and refuses to turn away from God.In Kentucky Tom is owned by Andy Shelby,a kindly master,who has fallen in to debt and is forced to sell his slaves.Tom is sold to a slave trader named Haley.He ends up in New Orleans in the possession of a romantic and flighty man by the name of St.Clare. After the unfortunate death of St.Clare and his daughter Tom is sold to a wicked plantation owner,Simon Legree,up the Red River.

The main character in Uncle Tom's Cabin is Uncle Tom.He is a kindly, uncommonly honest and over all a good man.Tom maintains his faith in God although it is often tested.He is an obedient and hard working slave.He endures his fate while helping others in need escape theirs.He befriends other slaves who want to escape in Canada.He has a wife named Aunt Chloe who is the Shelby's cook.She too is a very good and pious person.Who vows to buy back Tom when he is sold and works hard to try to do so.

There is also Eliza,the Shelby's maid and her son Harry,who she learns is being sold to the slave trader along with Uncle Tom.She is pain stricken to think that she my be separated from her son and asks Tom for help.

Andy's wife is against slavery and begs Andy not to sell Harry.She is pleased with Eliza and Harry's escape.

When Eilza appeals to Tom for help he advises that she along with her son run and the two quietly slip into the night.Though Tom decides he will not do the same.Andy's wife who is against slavery and begged Andy not to sell Harry is pleased with Eliza and Harry's escape.

Soon after the search for Eliza and Harry begins.The slave trader,Haley,along with two slaves track Eliza down but she narrowly escapes by jumping into a river.Haley then hires a slave hunter named Loker to continue to track her.Eliza and Harry end up being helped by a senator who claims to support slavery but is convinced by his wife to befriend them.

Mean while Tom starts off with the slave trader,He and Haley board a boat.At the same time we learn that Eliza and Harry are at a Quaker settlement where they are reunited with with Eliza's husband George. On the boat Tom befriends an angelic little girl named Eva and when the girl falls overboard Tom saves her. He is then purchased by St.Clare,the Eva's father.St.Clare is married to an awful woman named Marie ,His cousin Miss. Ophelia ,an honest and incredibly independent woman,lives with them to help care for Eva.Tom's new home ,with the St.Clares, is in Louisiana where he is given the formal job of horse diver.

Eliza,Harry and George leave the Quakers and are soon confronted by Loker and his gang but they manage to once again evade them.George proclaims to them that he will stop at nothing and will become a free man.At his new home Tom is given the responsibility of keeping his masters books.Also he is spreading his good word by trying to reform his new master,who we learn feels he isn't cut out for slavery.Little Eva demonstrates the power of love when she helps Tom write a letter to his family with whom he is still in close contact. St.Clare and his brother have a heated discussion about slavery while Eva asks her cousin to try to love his slave.

Eva takes ill and soon dies but before she goes she asks her father to free Tom and he promises to do so. After Eva's death Tom prays for her father.St.Clare