Harriet Beecher Stowe

There are three very important theories that govern childhood literature: children are very loving creatures with a great capacity for joy, children are very susceptible, delicate creatures, and children's literature should be made to teach moral behavior. However, Harriet Beecher Stowe presents a very different form of children's literature which contradicts these common beliefs about children and childhood literature.

One assumption made about children and childhood is that that children have a great capacity for love and joy. The text contradicts this by portraying a very heartless race of people who do not even know what love is because they simply do not have heart. Slave trader, Haley is the perfect example of this. When a slave man is stripped of his wife, Haley says, "He'll get another thar. Lord thar's women enough everywhar" (Stowe 170). Although Haley probably does not have a wife because he is not capable of being human and loving human beings, he cannot seem to put himself in other people's shoes, such as black people. If he were to lose his wife completely as this particular slave has, he would be ruined.

Next children are seen as very receptive, delicate creatures who are like "blank slates" that can easliy be influenced. This is far from the truth in Stowe's literature because she addresses one of the harshest, heartless topics in human history: slavery. Slavery in Uncle Tom's Cabin is portrayed as such. In slavery human beings simply are not treated like living creatures. Therefore children who read Uncle Tom's Cabin would be horribly affected by such a story so much so that their poor little innocent eyes would be opened to the worst evils of this world. This would scar them badly. In the passage, slaves are treated like even less than a dog, but a mule or other animal used for labor who is whipped (which should not be done anyway). Haley treats slaves "like cattle" (173). Haley "brands one boy in his right hand" (179). Again treating other human beings as if they were not at all human beings.

Thirdly, children's literature was written to teach morality, which strongly contrasts with Stowe's morals in UTC. As Amanda stated in class, Stowe believes in slavery, which puts one human being below another in terms of equality. In slavery, human beings are not treated equally. Stowe constantly refers to black people as "creatures" which has the connotation of them being animals and not people. A heroine in the story says slaves are "poor creatures". Stowe sympathizes with slaves and believes they should be treated nicely, however she still believes that it is o.k. for one human being to own another one, which is a very bad moral to teach to a child, let alone anybody.