Hidden Agenda in Uncle Tom's Cabin

A key difference between Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was in the descriptions of the nature of people. Frederick Douglass went into detail about the horrors that were attached to his personal experiences with slavery. He gave us the images of the evils brought upon him and other by slave owners. This gave  the audience a deeper understanding of the negative side of human nature that slavery brings about.

In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe took a different approach. There was a focus on the good-nature of the white people that treat their slaves well or help slaves escape their bondage.

Tom's and Eliza's first owners, the Shelby's, treated their slaves as humans. Their treatment of their slaves was put on a pedestal and they weren't blamed for having to sell Eliza and Tom because of how badly they didn't want to. Mrs. Shelby also plays a part in stalling the trader from chasing after Eliza.

Another instance was when the Senator and his wife help Eliza get farther away from the trader. The senator, Mr. Bird is "a man who had a particularly humane and accessible nature" while Mrs. Bird has an "unusually gentle and sympathetic nature" and "anything in the shape of cruelty would throw her into a passion". (828 - 829).

Then there are the Quakers, more specifically Rachel Halliday. She is described with a holy goodness to her. "Her hair, partially silvered by age, was parted smoothy back from a high place forehead on which time had written no inscription, except peace on earth, good will to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear, honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them, to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom." (852).

Stowe uses these descriptions of the Christian and good nature of the white people who are assisting slaves in some way to escape as a means of calling out to her audience to also assist in the Underground Railroad. The hope is that readers will identify with the goodliness or want badly to be thought of as this good. Then they will offer help to slaves if they ever come upon the chance because of that desire to be Stowe's version of "good and true".