In Uncle Tom's Cabin, By Harriett Jacobs And Harriet Stowe

Love is an emotion that has the capability to make people make decisions or actions they normally would not consider. Thus, the notion of sacrifice can be considered an act of love. By offering oneself to face the repercussion so that the well-being of others may be persevered. Authors such as Fredrick Douglass, Harriett Jacobs, and Harriet Stowe illustrate the affects love have on the individual and their choices in their given circumstances. Using Douglass’s narrative “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass,” Jacobs’s narrative “Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl,” and Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to analyze the type of love the individual displayed and how they expressed their love. Although, all the authors address love there
is a difference in what each sacrifices for their loved ones.
At the beginning of his narrative Douglass briefly mentions that he was purposely kept away from his mother by slave owners to prohibit the bond between a mother and her child. However, his mother would walk seven miles to see him at night and make her way back long before he would wake. Her determination was driven by the love she held for her son and allowed her to relinquish sleep. Even though, Douglass hardly remembers his mother, he would later face a similar situation himself, in which he has to leave loved ones. In 1834, he left Covey and went to live on Mr. Freeland’s plantation. There he meets fellow slaves Henry, John, and Henry Bailey whom he educates and enlightens about what it means to be a slave. From this interaction they grew to care for each other like family and Douglass states “I loved them with a love stronger than anything I have experienced since. It is sometimes said that we slaves do not love and confide in each other” (Douglass 71). He’s purpose is to emphasis he has grown to love the slaves on the plantation even though the only experience he had was faintly of his mother’s visits. Furthermore, he wanted to disprove the theory that slaves are not capable of feeling love or loving others. It is the strong attachment to others that awakens a part of ourselves that we would not consider otherwise. Slavery forced slaves to give up their dreams of freedom to remain with family and friends in fear that if they do not succeed the repercussions are far greater than death. In Douglass’s case he struggled with the inner conflict of wanting freedom and leaving those he held dear behind. Thus, he concluded that he would “bent myself to devising ways and means for our escape, and meanwhile strove, on all fitting occasions to impress them with gross fraud and inhumanity of slavery” (72). By included Henry, John, and Henry Bailey to partake on the plan to freedom he has increased the likelihood that they will be capture and decreased his chances of escaping. Even so, it demonstrates his devotion to keep the comparison they have created within a year’s time and survive the cruelty of slavery through love.
On the contrary, Jacobs was fortunate to have lived with both her parent and be surrounded by their love and affection until the age of six. This short duration of time spent with her family established an everlasting custom to be close to her family and would aid her in making a drastic decision. In her pursuit to evade her master, Dr. James Norcom, who was making sexual advances towards her. Jacobs resolved that the best course of action would be to flee to the north. Despite this, Jacobs could not bring herself to leave her children, Joseph and Lousia behind shackled to the life of slavery. Since the children’s father retracted on his promise to free them after he sent for their daughter to care for her white half-sister. She writes “I had a woman’s pride, and a mother’s love for my children; and I resolved that out of the darkness of this hour a brighter dawn should rise for them” (Jacobs 130). She incorporated this statement to show that regardless of what she had to encounter, she was willing to do what she had to in order to see her children. She not only illustrates her deep attachment for her children; she proves it by hiding in her Aunt Martha’s attic. Jacobs’s aunt was a free black woman that shelters her from her master while providing a place for her to look after her children. She recounts her living conditions “I hardly expect that the reader will credit me, when I affirm that I lived in that little dismal hole, almost deprived of light and air, and with no space to move my limbs, for nearly seven year” (224). Essentially, she sacrificed her well-being to be able to see her children from where she remained hidden. Her commitment to her children was undeterred until the dangers of staying at her aunt’s became too risky; forcing her to leave them behind. Nevertheless, she never gave up hope of freeing her children from the confinements of slavery. In the end, she succeeded and was able to free herself and her children.
In the face of the brutality and inhumane abuse slaves forced to endure by the hands of their masters.
There are seldom cases of slaves loving their masters and rarer occurrences of masters loving their slaves. One occasion transpired when Uncle Tom was sold to Augustine St. Claire after his daughter Evangeline (Eva) begged her father to buy him. The child became smitten with Uncle Tom through conversations and the moment that he leapt into the waters to save her after she had fallen in. Regrettably, Eva was ailed by sickness to the extremity that she was on her death bed. But, before she passed away she requested that all the slavers be present and proclaimed “I sent for you all, my dear friends,” said Eva, “because I love you. I love you all; and I have something to say to you, which I want you always to remember….I am going to leave you. In a few more weeks you will see me no more—“ (Stowe 419). The love Eva displayed for her slaves would have been forbidden during her time. Even so, her final wish was to convey her last words to them and present them with a token to remember her by. She decides to “give all of you a curl of my hair; and, when you look at it, think that I loved you and am gone to heaven, and that I want to see you all there” (420). This is important because as noted by her father, her hair is her trademark characteristic and his pride. It symbolizes that she considers her slaves to be on her equal and that regardless of the color of their skin that can reach heaven as well. This in its self is a sacrifice because she gives her hair away to encourage the salves that they will have peace after
death.
Whilst, it is evident that Douglass, Jacobs, and Eva each felt love through their own individual circumstances. The distinction that set them apart is what they sacrificed for their loved ones. Douglass being an African-America male wanted to escape the imprisonment of slavery and free his fellow brothers to give them back their manhood. He sacrificed taking them along so that they may all reap the taste of freedom and to not have a master. Jacobs on the other hand, wanted to have a place to watch over her children. She fought to stay near for as long as she could so that when the time came she could provide her children with a better life than what she had undergone. Lastly, Eva even to her last moment wanted to continue showing her love for the slaves on her plantation. That meant disregarding the established social norms to provide hope to them that heaven in open to all people.