As a child growing up, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was raised with religious and abolitionist views. During this period, many people saw slavery as justifiable. For example, Southerners assumed slavery was acceptable because they believed that the Bible and their religion were for it. Unlike the others, Stowe saw slavery as a cruel act and believed it had horrible effects on people. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe uses two children, Eva and Topsy, to demonstrate the damaging effects of slavery on both races. Slavery would cause some slaves to grow up without family members to give them guidance and love causing them to make reckless decisions. Stowe uses Topsy, a young slave, to demonstrate the effects of growing up …show more content…
The author uses Eva, a white child, to show how people were effected even though they weren’t a slave. Eva’s father, St. Clare, was a slave owner and had owned a couple slaves. However, Marie, Eva’s mother, despised slaves and felt like they weren’t worthy enough. Eva saw past this and loved everyone even if they were a slave or not. She didn’t understand as to why slaves were being mistreated and unloved. She started to see all the wicked things happening around her. For example, when she heard about how a slave named Prue died, Eva became depressed and explained to Uncle Tom that she would “die… to stop… the misery” happening to all these slaves (Stowe 307). As a child who is six years old, her mind is already becoming filled with all these thoughts about how paining it is to see these slaves suffer. Eva isn’t the only white person out there feeling the same way. During slavery, there were abolitionist who felt the same pain that Eva did witnessing the mistreatment of slaves. They would see these slaves in agony yet they weren’t allowed to do anything because they didn’t own them. Their view of society gets altered, which for some depresses them. Stowe demonstrates how white people can feel pain and be indirectly affected by