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What is the portrayal of slavery in Uncle Tom's Cabin?

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Uncle Tom's Cabin shows that even "kind" slaveowners had negative effects on the lives of their slaves and that slavery was a vile institution no matter how nice a slaveowner might seem.

Uncle Tom is an elderly man who's one of the main characters in the book. When he's sold, he's purchased by someone who seems to be a nice person—and might be, except for being a slaveowner. However, the promises of freedom don't materialize because circumstances cause the man to die before he can free Tom. Therefore, Tom is sold to a man who beats him to death for trying to conceal the location of others.

In contrast to Tom, the Harris family manages to escape slavery. They run away when they worry that they'll be separated and sold to pay off debts as well. Even though slave catchers try to catch them, they aren't able to. The family ends up in a much happier situation than Tom because they gain freedom by escaping to Canada.

The book shows over and over that slavery is insidious and immoral. It appeals to people's religious values by showing that people with strong religious convictions can't support slavery. It shows the cruelty of slaveowners, the way families could be separated, and how circumstances can funnel slaves from one bad situation to the next even with "kindly" owners.

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Harriet Beecher Stowe condemns slavery in every way in this novel, which was written as a polemic, with the purpose of persuading white readers that even under the best circumstances, slavery was a great evil.

Stowe shows us varieties of slave situations, starting with a "good" one--kind owners and a prosperous farm. Yet even this situation is terrible when the owner, Shelby, gets into financial trouble and must sell two slaves: Uncle Tom and a four-year-old boy. Uncle Tom must leave his wife and children; the four-year-old would be ripped from his mother's arms to enter who-knows-what cruel situation (the mother runs away with him).

Uncle Tom is sold to another kind-hearted man, Mr. St. Clare, but again, Stowe shows us how the slaves are at the mercy of circumstance: when St. Clare dies suddenly, they are left to his thoughtless, self-centered wife. Uncle Tom is sold down the river to the evil Simon Legree, where the reader witnesses the full cruelty of slavery. But whatever the circumstances, Stowe says, slavery is an evil institution that harms everyone involved with it, black or white. 

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