74 pages • 2 hours read
Harriet Beecher StoweUncle Tom's Cabin
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1851A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Book of Revelations
Revelations is a motif that features prominently in the novel because of the implications it has for an ostensibly Christian society that commits the great moral sin of upholding slavery. Due to its fantastic imagery, it captures the childish imaginations of Tom, Eva, and young George Shelby, the last of whom introduces the motif by reading it to a rapt audience of slaves.
Much of Stowe’s argument against slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is based on Christian thought, imagery, and doctrine, as well as on biblical scripture. The Book of Revelations is the final book of the New Testament. It depicts the apocalypse, the rise and fall of the Antichrist, the second coming of Christ, and the Last Judgement. The Last Judgement is the apocalyptic event wherein all of the dead of human history are resurrected to be judged, either sent to Heaven or banished to Hell based on the degree of their virtue or sin.
Revelations shows the hypocrisy of a Christian society that believes that black people have souls yet subjects them to a horrific degree of degradation. Eva, who reads Revelations frequently with Uncle Tom, makes it clear that this hypocrisy is damaging not only to the souls of the slaves, but also to the souls of their white masters. Tom, too, begs with Legree not to kill him—not to spare his own life, but to spare Legree of everlasting torment following the Last Judgement.
Augustine St. Clare reads Revelations as well, but unlike Legree, the idea forces an eleventh-hour conversion in him. Reading a passage of the scripture in which otherwise good people are cast into Hell for failing to do good rather than committing evil, Augustine recognizes his own hypocrisy and vows to change. Only his untimely death prevents him from actually doing so.
Eva St. Clare
Eva is a symbol of purity and religious piety. Along with Uncle Tom and the Quakers, she is one of the novel’s most pious characters. The common thread tying them together is a willingness to actually act upon their Christian values, rather than professing belief in word only. This involves actively loving and helping one’s fellow men, whether they are slave or free. Eva, in particular, advocates for actively loving slaves as one would love family members. Eva’s childlike purity endows her with a holy aura felt by all who come into contact with her, especially the adults in her life. Eva is a moral standard by which characters in the St. Clare household are measured. This is a standard trope in sentimental literature: children like Eva are frequently juxtaposed against the corruption and sin of adult society.
Augustine and Ophelia recognize these traits in Eva. Ophelia sees the way that Eva is able to love Topsy and recognizes the faults in her own actions toward the slave girl because of it. Augustine recognizes the similarities between Eva and his own quasi-angelic mother. He takes his daughter’s dying wish to heart and changes his attitude toward slavery and Christianity.
Eva’s death is portrayed almost as a holy event. She has visions of heaven in the moments leading up to the end of her life and functions as a prophet or revelator. Her peaceful passing creates an example for Uncle Tom in his last moments; she even comes to him in an almost angelic vision. The lock of hair Tom received from Eva functions like a holy relic. Simon Legree ironically associates it with witchcraft; however, when it twines itself around his fingers, it horrifies him, emphasizing his corruption and moral degradation.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Though the titular location of the novel is only briefly visited in the plot, Uncle Tom’s cabin becomes an overt symbol of freedom, piety, and brotherhood. Early on in the novel, the cabin is shown to be a place of religious congregation in addition to a paragon of domestic kinship and warmth. Young George Shelby freely visits the cabin and is treated like family by Aunt Chloe and Uncle Tom. The cabin is the site of a weekly religious and social congregation held by the Shelby slaves and others in the area.
Tom himself is described as “a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the neighborhood” (79). He leads the congregation in prayer due to his natural, pious nature. He does not lose this nature, even after being sold down river, being deprived of his wife and family, and facing great persecution at the hands of Simon Legree.
When Tom dies, George returns home to free the slaves and to tell the story of Uncle Tom’s martyrdom. Tom remained a Christian to the last; his suffering was assuaged by the assurance of salvation he felt his faith afforded him. When George relays this information, he actively reminds the newly freed Shelby slaves to think of Uncle Tom whenever they see his cabin: it will stand as a lasting symbol of his goodness, the cost of freedom, and the importance of remaining above temptation to sin.
