Most of the slave owners in Uncle Tom's Cabin are portrayed as decent people, even people that are trying to do the right thing. Since Stowe's goal in writing the book was to convince people that slavery was wrong and evil, why doesn't she show slaveowners as bad people? Wouldn't that have helped make her case that slavery needed to end? If the slave owners were mostly nice people, why, according to this book, was it so important that slavery be abolished?
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15 comments:
In the book Stowe portrays the slave owners and good and decent people not to bring down the society in which he is a part of but to inspire the people around his to be better. he tries to really change peoples hearts as he writes so that the people are self motivated to bring an end to slavery.
Stowe showed that the slaveowners are nice and treated their slaves fairly. Because if the readers of this book read that that the slaveowners were bad people and the reader themselves were or are slaveowners they may be offended causing them to harm their slaves. So i think that Stowe was nice to slaveowners to put up an example for the people reading the book.
Comments:
1. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a woman!
2. Her audience was actually not slave owners, it was people in the Northern United States where slavery was illegal. Uncle Tom's Cabin was not available anywhere that slavery was legal - it was banned by local governments. I'm pretty sure that Stowe knew this would happen, and that she never expected any large number of slave owners to read her book.
3. So back to my original question. If she is writing to non slave-owners, why would she be worried if people saw slave owners in her book as 'evil, malicious, racist rednecks?' if she wants her readers to oppose slavery?
Jezin - good question on my '#2.' The book was published in the U.S. and Europe. Stowe was intelligent enough to know that her book would make slave-owners very angry, and that they would try to stop people from reading it. Just after the book was published, it was banned in all of the Southern slavery states. I'm sure this was not a surprise to Stowe. Most Northern Americans who lived in states where slavery was illegal really didn't care about slavery in the South, and Stowe's main purpose was to change their minds so that they would join her in fighting to make slavery illegal.
Stowe did not want to show slave owners as bad people but she wanted them to see what was actually happening.Many African Americans were leaving their children and wife behind (which is a sad thing)and many were misused.
In the beginning of the book, Stowe showed how the two slaveowners were discussing of selling a slave to another. Slaves were the "precious" tools and were good deals for businessmen. Racism doesn't play a role. Stowe illustrates the conversation between Mr. Shelby and Mr. Haley that they would treat a slave with care.
I've read a little furthur into the book and I am beginning to think that Stowe wrote this book to the northerns who were as portrayed in this book as opinionated and hipocritical because she wanted them to see that they were no better then the slave owners because they took no action against them. The northerns spoke there mind a most professed to be christian but they were like the pharasces in the bible who did everything for them selves and for others to see. They still saw slaves as less than human and treated them with contempt. It sort of bugs me because it show just far we have progress in 2000 people still do things for show and nothing because they truly believe it to be right.
I think that Stowe portrays slave owners as nice so that people could see the difference from good and bad slave owners, but I must agree with Jezin where she said that no matter if they are good or bad slave owners they are still involved in slavery which in general does not seem right in society, through taking someone else's life and turning them into a piece of tool. So I believe that Stowe was showing both sides of the slave owners and letting the readers know that slavery is slavery and that it should be dealt with.
Stowe's purpose of writing this is not to criticize the slave owners, but to tell the readers that the slaves' lives were awful. She did not portrayed the slave owners as evil people since the southerners might talk badly about the northerners, although the northerners just did what people around them did. Maybe Stowe might want not to harm both the slave owners and the slaves. The segregation should be end because the slaves have their own rights and free will. Even if the slave owners were nice, the slaves could not escape the fact that they have masters to serve. They could not live with their own family, and could not have their private life only with their own family. So, in order for the slaves to have their own rights, they should be freed from their masters.
I meant that northerners might talk badly about the southerners. Even though the southerners owned slaves because the others did so.
I think Stowe wrote this book to the slave owners telling them that even though they might be good to their slaves they are still involved in slavery which is a bad thing. even though they might be good slave owners but if they are selling them to another person he might not necessarily be good.
Anu-First of all, Mr. Richards said that the book was not written to the slave owners, but to the Northern Americans where the slavery was illegal. But, before reading what Mr. Richards had said, I also thought the same way. I think even if the northern slave owners read this novel, they might not have like it. They will just criticize the book and not learn kindness from it.
Stowe wanted to change something, if he would have portayed them as bad people and if one would be a slave owner, one would maybe not even read it because almost everybody sees themselves as normal and decent people. (I hope you can catch my point)
Stowe also tryed to be as true as possble and not show biased information. It wouldn't have helped her at all, the opposite would be the effect.
Slavery is a negative thing in general and dehumanizes people, that is not debatable.
To Uncle Tom
Aha~ so the book was originally for the the Northerners so that they could also help ban slavery~ Because at the beginning I was really confused because I was thinking why she would write a book for the Northern region where slavery was illegal. That doesn't make sense because there is no use to write a book for them because slavery was already banned. But I would have never thought that Stowe wrote this book for Norhterners so that they could fight along with her. Because normally (I think) authors would want to write books about slavery for the slave owners so that they should stop doing it... I think that's really clever of her.
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