Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly — Summary & Analysis
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Plot Overview
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly follows two parallel stories set in the antebellum American South. The first centers on Uncle Tom, a deeply Christian enslaved man on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky, who is sold south to pay his master's debts. His journey takes him first to the genteel New Orleans household of Augustine St. Clare, where he befriends the angelic young Little Eva, and ultimately into the brutal clutches of the cotton planter Simon Legree in Louisiana. Tom endures whippings and degradation, yet refuses to betray two escaped enslaved women, and is beaten to death for it — dying with forgiveness on his lips.
The second story follows Eliza Harris, an enslaved woman on the same Kentucky plantation, who overhears that her young son Harry is to be sold and flees with him across the partly frozen Ohio River in one of American literature's most famous scenes. Eliza eventually reunites with her husband George Harris — himself a fugitive — and the family makes its way north through the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada. Together these interlocking plots trace the full arc of American slavery, from the paternalistic Kentucky farms to the brutal Deep South plantations.
Key Themes
The moral indictment of slavery is the novel's organizing force. Stowe argued that no version of slavery — however kindly managed — could be defended, because it transformed human beings into property and made their families subject to separation at any moment. The sale of Tom and Harry in the very first chapters illustrates this: the Shelbys are portrayed as decent people, yet their financial troubles override every personal loyalty. Family separation emerges as slavery's cruelest weapon, and Eliza's desperate river crossing is the novel's most visceral embodiment of a mother's refusal to let that happen.
Christianity runs as a second major current. Stowe envisioned Uncle Tom as a figure of Christ-like suffering — patient, forgiving, and spiritually undefeated even as he is physically destroyed. Little Eva, who shares Tom's devout faith, represents the redemptive power of innocent love. Stowe contrasted these characters with the hardened Simon Legree, whose cruelty she traced to a deliberate suppression of conscience, implying that slavery corrupted the soul of the oppressor as surely as it damaged the body of the enslaved. The moral authority of women also runs through the novel: characters like Eliza, Eva, and the Quaker Rachel Halliday act as the story's ethical compass, while men with power — even the sympathetic St. Clare — prove unable or unwilling to act on what they know to be right.
Major Characters
Uncle Tom is the novel's moral anchor — steady, pious, and determined to keep his faith regardless of what is done to him. His willingness to die rather than betray others is both his tragedy and his spiritual triumph. Eliza Harris is the novel's woman of action: where Tom submits, Eliza resists, choosing flight over compliance to save her child. Her husband George Harris, sharp-minded and fierce, voices the political anger that Tom does not. Augustine St. Clare is Stowe's study in moral paralysis — a man who acknowledges the wrong of slavery but cannot bring himself to act. His daughter Little Eva, saintly and short-lived, becomes the novel's symbol of the transformative power of love. And Simon Legree, who purchased Tom for his physical strength, represents unredeemed evil — a man who has drowned every human instinct in brutality and profit.
Historical Significance
Published in 1852, first as a serial in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era, Uncle Tom's Cabin became the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book (after the Bible) of the entire nineteenth century in the United States. Its emotional directness brought the abstract injustice of slavery into domestic, human terms for millions of readers who had never set foot on a plantation, galvanizing Northern public opinion and sharpening the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. When President Abraham Lincoln reportedly greeted Stowe as "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war," the remark — likely apocryphal — nevertheless captured the novel's outsized cultural impact. It remains one of the most powerful works of political fiction in the American literary tradition, and you can read the full text of Uncle Tom's Cabin free online here on American Literature, alongside Stowe's adapted Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition and her biographical portrait Sojourner Truth, The Libyan Sybil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (1852) is an anti-slavery novel that follows two parallel stories. The first traces Uncle Tom, a deeply Christian enslaved man, as he is sold away from his Kentucky home and passed through successively harsher circumstances — from the genteel St. Clare household in New Orleans to the brutal Louisiana plantation of Simon Legree, who eventually beats Tom to death. The second story follows Eliza Harris, who flees with her young son across the frozen Ohio River and eventually reaches freedom in Canada with her husband George. Together the two plots expose the full horror of American slavery: its casual destruction of families, its corruption of slaveholders, and its dehumanization of the enslaved.
The dominant theme is the moral evil of slavery in all its forms — Stowe argued that no version of the institution could be justified, no matter how kindly the slaveholder. A second major theme is Christian faith as resistance: Uncle Tom's spiritual strength and forgiveness, even in the face of lethal violence, positions him as a Christ-like figure who cannot be truly defeated. Family separation is a third driving theme, embodied most powerfully in Eliza's desperate flight to save her son Harry from being sold. Finally, Stowe emphasizes the moral authority of women — characters like Eliza, Little Eva, and the Quaker Rachel Halliday are the novel's ethical compass, while men with social power repeatedly fail to act on what they know to be right.
Uncle Tom is the protagonist — an enslaved man of deep Christian faith whose patience and forgiveness define the novel's moral center. Eliza Harris is a Kentucky enslaved woman who escapes north with her son Harry; her crossing of the half-frozen Ohio River is the novel's most iconic scene. Her husband George Harris voices the political outrage Tom does not, eventually winning freedom in Canada. Little Eva (Evangeline St. Clare) is the angelic child whose friendship with Tom and early death illustrate Stowe's belief in the transformative power of innocent love. Augustine St. Clare, Eva's father, is a study in moral paralysis — he recognizes the injustice of slavery but cannot bring himself to act. Simon Legree, Tom's final and most brutal owner, is the novel's embodiment of unredeemed evil.
Published in 1852 — just two years after the Fugitive Slave Act required Northerners to assist in capturing escaped enslaved people — Uncle Tom's Cabin translated the abstract political debate over slavery into vivid human stories. By centering the narrative on recognizable domestic scenes — a mother's love for her child, a family torn apart by debt, a man beaten to death for his faith — Stowe made the injustice of slavery emotionally undeniable for readers who had never witnessed it firsthand. The novel became the best-selling American novel of the nineteenth century and is widely credited with hardening Northern public opinion against slavery. It helped energize the abolitionist movement and sharpened the sectional tensions that contributed to the American Civil War.
The scene in which Eliza Harris leaps from ice floe to ice floe across the half-frozen Ohio River — her infant son clutched in her arms, slave-catchers close behind — is one of the most famous moments in American literature. Stowe uses it to embody a mother's absolute refusal to allow her child to be sold and separated from her: Eliza does not weigh the odds or calculate the risk, she simply acts. The Ohio River marks the border between Kentucky (a slave state) and Ohio (a free state), so the crossing is also a literal passage from bondage toward freedom. For contemporary readers the scene was a visceral answer to the Fugitive Slave Act, demonstrating that enslaved people were not passive property but human beings willing to risk everything for their families.
Christianity is both a structural and moral backbone of the novel. Stowe conceived Uncle Tom as a figure of Christ-like suffering: he endures cruelty without hatred, forgives those who persecute him, and ultimately accepts death rather than betray other enslaved people. Little Eva shares his faith and, through her love and her deathbed words, moves the hardened people around her toward grace — her father St. Clare begins to act on his conscience before he is killed. Stowe contrasted these redemptive figures against Simon Legree, who has deliberately suppressed every religious impulse, suggesting that cruelty requires the active destruction of conscience. For Stowe, a Christian nation that permitted slavery was a contradiction in terms, and the novel was in part a call to Northern Christians to act on their stated beliefs.
You can read the complete text of Uncle Tom's Cabin free online here on American Literature — all 45 chapters, with no sign-up required. Stowe's adapted Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition is also available on the site for younger readers. The novel was first published as a serial in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era in 1851–52 and has been in the public domain for over a century.
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