Uncle Tom's Cabin

“Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the law not a man but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded, tyrannical master.” 

George, like all slaves, owns nothing of the fruits of his labor. Despite the fact that he is intelligent, resourceful, and well-liked by his employer at the factory, Mr. Harris owns George completely due to the nature of the system of slavery. What is more, Mr. Harris recognizes George’s talents—and instead of rewarding him, he is jealous and punishes him because of his aptitude. 

“My master! and who made him my mater? That’s what I think of—what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I’m a better manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better hand –and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him—I’ve learned it in spite of him; and now what right has he to make a dray-horse of me?” 

In many ways, George serves as a foil to the belief, held by many of Stowe’s contemporaries, that black people were somehow naturally less intelligent than whites. George is much more capable than his master, a fact which highlights the absurd notion that a human being can be owned by anyone—especially someone inferior to them. 

“Here he turned to the rough trundle bed full of little woolly heads, and broke fairly down. He leaned over the back of the chair, and covered his face with his large hands. Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chair, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor; just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man, —and you are but another man. And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life’s great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow!” 

Stowe emphasizes the pathos of the scene that wrenches Tom from his family. Stowe frequently turns to the commonalities of motherhood and fatherhood to sway her audience emotionally. The feelings of human beings denigrated into the status of property becomes a common theme throughout the rest of the novel.