Uncle Tom's Cabin

In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the chains of slavery are igniting people to go to drastic measures to protect every belief they have. The mothers in this story will not let anything get between them and their baby. Children become symbols of disaster and loneliness rather than hope.

When Eliza hears of Shelly potentially selling her child, she decides that her only choice is to run away. Her child, the light of her life, is going to be taken from her and sold into slavery apart from her. Because of Eliza’s love for her baby, she realizes what she has to do, “But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger” (105). As most children’s literature encourages morality and is a symbol of hope, Uncle Tom’s Cabin uses children as a cause of suffering. Stowe went straight to the point; she described a lifestyle of realism. She even attacked the issue of race. Eliza was a very light skinned slave who could pass as white. A white mother, slave or not, will be treated with more respect based solely on the color of her skin. The fact that she had a child was also an important factor for her sympathy. Miss Bird was taken aback by Eliza’s story of her passion for her child, “never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort and pride, day and night; and, ma'am, they were going to take him away from me, -- to sell him, -- sell him down south, ma'am, to go all alone, -- a baby that had never been away from his mother in his life!” (150).

Slavery is the cause for all this mayhem. If it were not for the indulgencies of the white man and their lack of humanity, this event would have not happened. Children are in the middle of the conflicts in this novel. Like Eliza’s escape for her child, the mother on the ship took extreme measures because of Haley taking her child. The woman jumped off the boat in the middle of the night; she would rather die than live with the fact that her child was stolen from her. Tom awoke to the woman’s splash, “At midnight, Tom waked, with a sudden start. Something black passed quickly by him to the side of the boat, and he heard a splash in the water” (211). As Haley questioned Tom about where she was, he soon finds out about her jumping off. He decides to take it as a loss and move on.

Slavery ruined the idea of a family and the role of children. A mother’s will is stronger than a man’s desire. Children no longer symbolized hope; they were a symbol of confinement.