Summary of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
G. Beecher-Stowe
Uncle Tom’s hut
The novel takes place in the early 1850s. in USA. He opens the conversation with the “good” planter Shelby with slave-dealer Gayley, whom he wants to sell his best nigger to Uncle Tom in payment of debts. Speaking about humanism, understood in a very peculiar way, Gayley expresses the point of view of many slavers: he should not, he believes, sell the child in front of his mother, so that there are no unnecessary tears and, thus, the goods did not spoil. Do not also strongly flog them, but they should not be worn too much – “kindness goes to them sideways.” In addition to Tom Gailey asked to sell him Harry, the son of the quart-maker Eliza, the housemaid.
Eliza’s husband George Harris is a slave to a neighboring planter. Once he worked in a factory where he proved himself very well, but the owner did not want to tolerate the independence of the Negro and put him on the hardest work. Two children
On the same day, George comes to Elise and informs her of her intention to flee to Canada, as the master forces him to marry another, although he was crowned by a priest with Eliza.
Having signed the merchants to Tom and Harry, Mr. Shelby tells the whole story of his wife. Eliza hears their conversation and decides to run to save the child. She calls with her Uncle Tom, but he is willing to submit to fate.
About escape it becomes known only in the morning. Behind the fugitive a chase is organized, but she manages to move to the state of Ohio, where slavery is forbidden.
The missed fugitive Gayley accidentally meets Tom Locker and his companion named Marks, hunters for runaway slaves who agree to help him.
Eliza finds herself in the house of Senator Byrd, who does not share the ideas of the slave trade and helps her hide behind reliable people.
Meanwhile, Gayley takes Tom from the Shelby estate, shackling him in shackles. The eldest son of the owners George gives Tom a silver dollar for his memory
Arriving in the city, Gayley buys at auction a few more slaves, separating children from mothers. Then the Negroes are loaded onto the steamer – they need to be transported to the southern states. Slaves shackled in shackles are taken on the lower deck, while white men are riding freely on the top, arguing about the slave trade. Some believe that Negroes on plantations live better than at will, others believe that the worst thing about slavery is “an outrage on human feelings, attachments,” and others are certain that God Himself judged Africans to be slaves and to be content with their situation.
During one of the parking, Gayley returns with a young negress who nurses a ten-month-old baby. He immediately sells the baby for $ 45, and he is secretly taken away from his mother. In desperation she throws herself into the water.
On the same boat, a rich and noble gentleman from New Orleans, named Saint-Clair, travels with a six-year-old daughter and an elderly relative. “Tom watched with interest the girl, for the blacks with their kindness and impressionability are always drawn to everything pure, childlike.” One day, the girl, leaning over the side, falls into the water, and Tom rescues her. A grateful father buys Tom from Gayley.
Augustin Saint-Clair, son of a wealthy Louisiana planter, returns home, to New Orleans. The elderly relative is his cousin Miss Ophelia, the embodiment of accuracy and order. Its main life principle is a sense of duty. In the house of Augustin she will manage the household, since the wife of her cousin is weak in health.
The wife of Saint-Claire Marie is an eccentric, selfish creature who approves of slavery. Saint-Claire’s attitude towards slavery is purely pragmatic – he understands that he can not be eradicated, whilst it benefits White. Looking at Ophelia, he notes the ambivalent attitude towards Negroes northerners: “You treat them with disgust and at the same time stand up for them.”
In the meantime, Eliza and George, sheltered by the Quaker community, are preparing to flee to Canada. Together with them goes Negro Jim. He has long lived in Canada, but returned to the United States to take with him an elderly mother.
Suddenly they learn that behind them is organized a chase, in which Tom Lokker, two policemen and a local rabble are taking part. During the shoot-out, George injures Tom Locker. The comrades drop it, and the fugitives are picked up and taken to the house where good care is organized.
The action is again transferred to the house of St. Clair. Its inhabitants are intensely discussing the problem of slavery. Ososten condemns slavery, but can not confront him alone. To not hourly not face the most rude of its manifestations, he refused to own the plantation. He is sure that in the end Negroes, like the masses in the whole world, will win their own freedom.
One day he brings as a gift to Ophelia a Negro eight years old named Topci, whom the previous owner brutally beat. The girl is very clever. She is described as a prankster and thief, but kind and sympathetic in the shower.
It takes two years. It turns out that the daughter of St. Clair Evangeline (abbreviated Eve) suffers from consumption. She is a very gentle and sympathetic girl. Her dream is to let all Negroes go free and educate them. But most of all, she is attached to Uncle Tom.
Somehow, talking to her father, she tells him that she will soon die, and asks after her death to release Uncle Tom for freedom. Saint-Claire promises her this, but his promise is not to be fulfilled: soon after the death of his daughter, he tragically perishes in a drunken brawl. Well at least Miss Ophelia manages to get a gift from him on Topsy.
After St. Clair’s death, the despotic Marie takes matters into her own hands. Oka is going to sell the house and all her husband’s slaves and go to his father’s plantation. For Tom, this means eternal slavery. The mistress does not want to be released, in fulfillment of the will of her late daughter, and, along with other negroes, sends him to a slave barrack, where they collect a lot of Negroes for the auction.
A slave barrack is the same as a commercial warehouse: several Negroes, women and men are exhibited in front of him as specimens of goods. It is difficult to describe the sufferings of Negroes before the auction – they are morally prepared to be separated from their families, torn from their familiar, familiar situation, to the hands of evil people. “One of the most terrible circumstances associated with slavery is that a Negro can fall into the hands of a cruel and coarse tyrant at any moment – just like a table that once decorated a luxurious living room, ends up in a dirty inn The essential difference is only that the table does not feel anything, whereas a person can not take away his soul, memories and attachments, desires and fears. “
Tom gets to Simon Legri. He immediately forces him to change into the rough clothes of a slave, and sells his things to the sailors of the steamer on which he goes home. On the plantation of Legri new slaves settle in miserable huts, where it is so crowded that the apple has nowhere to fall. They sleep here on the ground, spreading a little straw. The diet is extremely meager: after exhausting work on the collection of cotton – just one flat cake of cornmeal.
Once upon a time, the beautiful, stately quartroness Cassie, the host’s lover, comes out to pick cotton. It works very fast, it helps the weak and the lagging. Tom also shares the collected cotton – with Lucy, a sick mulatto. In the evening, the owner, seeing Tom’s good work, decides to appoint him as an overseer and first wants to make him flog Lucy and a few more slaves. Tom resolutely refuses, for which he himself receives beatings.
In the evening Cassie comes to him, smears his wounds and tells about himself. Her father was a rich planter, and she received a good education. However, the father died suddenly and did not manage to give her a free one. It was bought by a young man whom she loved very much and from whom she gave birth to two children, but he, having made debts, also sold it. The children were taken from her, and she began to move from one master to another. Cassie has a great influence on Legri and persuades him to leave Tom alone – at least for the time of fieldwork.
For Eliza and George is approaching the hour of long-awaited freedom. Struck by their nobility, Tom Locker (having recovered, he decided to abandon hunting for people and engage in hunting for bears) warns them that they can wait for the detectives at the steamship on which they are going to go to Canada. Then Eliza changes into a man’s suit; Harry dress up as a girl and at the time give up Mrs. Smith, a white Canadian who returns to her homeland. They manage to safely cross the border lake Erie to the town of Amherstberg, where they stay in the house of a local priest.
And in the estate of Legri, Tom waits in vain for the news from the old masters. Cassie suggests that he kill the master, but he does not want to take sin into his soul. He also refuses to run, but Cassie and her new mistress Aegri young Emmelina are plotting to escape. Pretending to run to the swamps, women hide in the attic, which causes all the inhabitants of the estate, including Legri, superstitious fear. In an attempt to find out where Cassie and Emmeline had gone, he orders his men to beat Tom. They are very diligent in obeying orders.
Suddenly, George Shelby comes to the manor, who by accident found Uncle Tom, but can not take the Negro with him – he dies in his arms. At the grave of Tom George, who after the death of his father became the owner of the estate, swears that he will never have slaves.
Taking advantage of the situation, Cassie and Emmeline run from the attic. On the ship they get acquainted with George Shelby and some Madame de Tu, who travels with her daughter. It turns out that she is the sister of George Harris. The young Shelby begins to tell her about George’s fate, and Cassie, who accidentally heard their conversation, realizes that his wife Eliza is her daughter.
Together with Madame de Tu Cassie sent to Canada, where he finds a daughter. On mature reflection the reunited family decides to move to France. On the ship Emmeline marries the 1st captain’s assistant.
In France, George Harris receives a good education and moves to Liberia, which he considers his homeland. Madame de Tuu finds the son of Cassie, who is also going to Africa.
Upon learning of the death of her husband, Aunt Chloe, who went to work in order to redeem him, finds no place for grief, and George Shelby performs the oath given at the tomb of Uncle Tom, and gives all his slaves free.
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