Preview

Similarities in Twelve Years a Slave, and Uncle Tom's Cabin

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
787 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Similarities in Twelve Years a Slave, and Uncle Tom's Cabin
Is there a possibility that two books on slavery, one fiction and the other non-fiction have similar concepts to it? The answer is yes it is possible, in the books Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Twelve Years A Slave by Solomon Northup, have many similarities in them. Some of those similar things are religion, violence, and unexpected turns in their life. In the essay it will explain how those topics are similar in the books.

The thing that you hear the most throughout both books is religion. That subject is a very important to both men. It was one Tom's dominant characteristics, even though he wasn't the best reader in the world he reads the Bible and leads prayer meeting. He did this so that everyone around him will learn and live the teachings of God. Solomon still believed in God he just didn't teach it to everybody that was around him. He let his Christianity show through his behavior. Tom and Solomon both feel that being a Christian should be a very big part of your life, because their belief was in every obstacle that you go through God will help you through it. Even through certain points both men started to lose there faith, there was always something to come and happen to help them build there belief in God even bigger.

Violence, when you see are hear that world you can think of hundreds of things ranging from what is going on in the world today are what has went on world since the beginning of time. That also is another main topic in this book, in both books you read how both men go through the beatings, and try their best never to get beaten. Tom was a very good slave never had to worry about getting beatings because he always had a slave owner that was generous enough not beat there slaves for every little thing. As time pass Tom is sold to a slave owner who literally works his slaves to death, and when Tom refuses to beat on the other slaves Mr. Simon beats him so badly that over times he dies from the wound that he received.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In conclusion, the similarity between Twelve Years of a Slave and Betty Cofer was the dialect, while differing from each other was the way the slaves were treated and the origin of slavery. These narratives show the reader how slavery had different point of views to it. Most of society believe that the people serving their owners hated it, but that was not always the case. By comparing and contrasting these narratives, it gave the different perspectives of slavery. However, it also revealed how horrible our world has treated these people, giving them no voice or the freedom that they…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Uncle Tom's Cabin Summary

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I read the book Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was a chilly February…

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The tale of Uncle Tom’s Cabin begins in the parlor of the Shelby household, as Mr. Shelby discusses how many slaves he will need to sell to Mr. Haley, a slave trader, to relieve him of his debts after falling upon hard times. Shelby ultimately decides to sell Tom, a “good, steady, sensible, pious fellow” (Stowe 2). Eliza, Mrs. Shelby’s favorite slave, overhears the negotiations for the sale of her son, Harry, as well and promptly decides that they must run away to Canada that same night. She hopes to ultimately reunite with her husband, George, who has previously decided that he will run away from his master to Canada. Eliza also warns Tom and his wife that they too should flee. …

    • 1414 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The cinematic world has a long history with slavery. Movies are considered as a current impact of this phenomenon. There is a long list of films featuring slavery issue with a commun aim which is to demonstrate its negative aspects. Among the notable movies about slavery there is 12 Years a slave released in 2013 and based on a true story of Solomon Northup who was a free black man who was kidnapped and found himself enslaved for 12 years.…

    • 171 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a sad fictional story about the hardship of slavery. The book describes a life of a slave who is sold again and again and finally meet his end at the hand of his last mastered. Uncle Tom’s cabin is an amazing book that describe the life of Tom and other slaves who fight on to keep their family together. Her book revealed the inhumane cruelty of slaves separated from their families…

    • 75 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mr. Shelby’s slaves lived together in a cabin. Of these slaves living in the cabin is Shelby’s most reliable, Tom. He aids the slaves in keeping their values. Much of this novel takes place outside of Mr. Shelby’s plantation. Throughout this novel, the cabin travels with Tom. This cabin is a place of faith, hope, love, and forgiveness. Tom’s personality helps recreate the atmosphere originally found in the cabin in the new places to which he is transported. One can see how these valued principles travel with Tom in the events of him finding that he is to be sold, helping a woman with her cotton, and his convincing Cassy of God.…

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The best way to give someone the idea of an institution’s terrible enormity, is to give them depictions of people who have suffered under it. This is the principle idea of the slave narrative, where former slaves tell their experiences in slavery and how they escaped. As most were written when slavery was still legal, the true purpose of these published accounts is addressed in a myriad of different ways throughout, but sums up to this - to convince the reader, through depictions of abuse and dehumanization, that slavery should not be condoned, for the perpetual abuse and misery the slave must endure is not worth the product. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are two examples of slave narrative authors who utilize this emotional appeal…

    • 2006 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The experience of slavery was equally hard for men, women and children. From the cotton fields of America to the sugar cane plantations of Brazil, slavery still carried an awful implication. Though those enslaved may have had different backgrounds or beliefs they both endured the same oppression. No matter their position on the globe, the common oppression of slavery connected them. They were taken from their native land, families were left behind, and despair was on the rise. Along with these similarities, differences can be found. However, the similarities that these two groups represented, connect them on a supernatural level.…

    • 1886 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, a book that quickly became a topic of polarizing national discussion. Harriet Beecher Stowe used the power of the pen to prompt a debate about change centered on the social movement of abolitionism. Considered one of the precipitants of the Civil War, Uncle Tom’s Cabin raised awareness among abolitionists and northerners who had never interacted with African Americans or had never experienced slavery first hand. When slavery’s defenders vehemently disputed the novel’s authenticity, Stowe published the factual research for her novel in A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin the following year. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book portrayed a face, a mind, and a soul of black Americans…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slaves, male and female, were subjected to similar hardships. Both searched for freedom and had dedication to help free others. The narratives of Harriet Jacobs, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and Frederick Douglass’, “In the Life of Frederick Douglass” portrayed two very different accounts. The narratives detail what living a slave’s life entailed. However, Jacobs’ emotional memories and obstacles of being a female slave make a stronger connection to the reader who is capable of feeling her emotions through the intense words she wrote.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Douglas vs Stowe

    • 1659 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Before the Civil War, America was plagued with a complicated social quandary that incorporated individual, societal, political, economic, and religious principles. Its authorship includes Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe who dually challenges the legitimacy of slavery in their literature. While both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and Frederick Douglas’s “Narrative of the Life of an American Slave,” offer impelling accounts, regarding the historical slavery era throughout the 1800s, the two authors write from distinctive experiences. Stowe’s Uncle Tom, a fictional character, attracts his audience through his profound Christian faith, which gives him an unbreakable spirit that enables him to see both the hand of God in all that happens and, in the critical moment, to stand up for what he believes is morally conscientious. Douglas, on the other hand, attracts his audience through his short but extremely powerful autobiography, which the great abolitionist brilliantly brings out slavery’s corrupting influence on society. Although both literary works have won over the hearts of numerous audiences during the time of its public release, Douglas, as his own character, presents a more imperative perception of his identity as a slave than Stowe’s Uncle Tom through his strategy of writing, his audiences, and initiative for freedom.…

    • 1659 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    12 Years A Slave Essay

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The movie shows us three significant parts of Solomon Northup's life. it starts with Northup as a free man. Born as a free man in 1808, he had privileges that not a lot of colored people had. He could read and write, he learned how to play the violin, which would later help him when he is enslaved. When he turned 21, he got…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Growing Up In Slavery

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In this book, it explains the distress and grief these slaves had to face in their everyday lives. There is ten slaves and each of them wrote their own story about what they had to face each and everyday. For example, one of the slaves is Frederick Douglass. He was the most famous African American of the nineteenth century. This book, sets back into the eighteen hundreds and kids at eight years old would be taken away from their loved ones and were put to work like cattle by their new possessor. For example, Frederick Douglas at the age of eight was taken from his mother without even saying goodbye. Douglas had to call his new controller Aunt Kathy or he would get a flogging. He explains the misery he had to sustain and how many times he was beaten or punished to starve. For example, he wrote about his new owner Kathy, “The cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; the voice, made all of sweet accord changed to one harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon”. (Taylor, 2005, p. 58). Each slave at the end of their story explains their after life. Growing Up In Slavery makes you think of life in other people’s shoes and how it would make you feel if you were them.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    differnces

    • 576 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are two authors with very similar backgrounds. Both Douglass and Jacobs illustrate the tension involving being African American in a time where slaves did not have any rights, and when they were treated like property instead of a humans. Each of the slaves had different experiences with slavery, but one thing in common: share their accounts through autobiography on how slavery greatly changed their lives. The experiences, memories and treatment in any situation are viewed upon differently between a man and a woman. Obvious in the case of slavery, the two sexes were treated differently and so therefore their recollections of such events were-different…

    • 576 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The purpose of the narrative is to inform the reader of the circumstances that the slaves had to deal with on a day to day basis and also as a public argument against slavery. I feel that he book is an exceptional piece of literature that by all standards envelops the reader into the world of a slave in the 1800s. The literature not only examines the life of Frederick Douglas but the ideas of the time in which he…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays