Uncle Tom’s Cabin · Chapter
Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners explained
Mr.
What happens
Mr. and Mrs. Shelby discuss the sale of Tom and Harry to the slave trader Haley. Mrs. Shelby is horrified and pleads with her husband, offering her jewelry to save Eliza's child. Eliza overhears the conversation and resolves to escape with her son, packing a small bundle and writing a farewell note to her mistress.
Themes in this chapter
Family and Separation
Eliza's desperate plan to save her son Harry from being sold away highlights the threat of family dissolution under slavery.
Hypocrisy of American Society
Mrs. Shelby confronts the contradiction between Christian teachings about family and the reality of selling slaves for profit.
Motherhood and Sacrifice
Eliza's willingness to risk everything to save her child, and Mrs. Shelby's offer to sacrifice her jewelry, exemplify maternal devotion.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Shelby
Defends the sale of Tom and Harry as a financial necessity, revealing his powerlessness due to debt.
- Mrs. Shelby
Expresses moral outrage at the sale, offers her watch to save Harry, and laments the curse of slavery.
- Eliza Harris
Eavesdrops on the Shelbys' conversation, then resolves to flee with her son Harry, packing a bundle and writing a note.
- Harry
Eliza's young son, asleep and unaware of the plan to sell him; his mother prepares to save him.
- Haley
The slave trader who has purchased Tom and Harry; described as a man of leather, cold and unrelenting.
- Uncle Tom
Mentioned as the faithful servant sold to Haley; Mrs. Shelby plans to visit him in his distress.
Key passages
“I haven’t any jewelry of any amount... but would not this watch do something?—it was an expensive one, when it was bought. If I could only at least save Eliza’s child, I would sacrifice anything I have.”
Mrs. Shelby offers her expensive gold watch, her only valuable jewelry, in a desperate attempt to prevent the sale of Eliza's son Harry.
Shows Mrs. Shelby's maternal empathy and willingness to sacrifice personal possessions for the sake of a slave child.
“Poor boy! poor fellow!... they have sold you! but your mother will save you yet!”
Eliza whispers to her sleeping son that she will rescue him from the sale she has just overheard.
Highlights Eliza's determination and the emotional bond between mother and child in the face of separation.
“This is God’s curse on slavery!—a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!—a curse to the master and a curse to the slave!”
Mrs. Shelby declares that slavery is a divine punishment that harms both the enslaved and the enslaver.
Reflects the moral condemnation of slavery as a system that corrupts all involved.