This scene shocks through the contrast between a child’s innocent fear and the extreme resolve it awakens in his mother. The question “you won’t let him get me?” reveals how the threat of being sold has invaded even the safety of sleep, underscoring slavery’s reach into the most intimate spaces of family life. This pure and genuine question awakens something in Eliza- a strength to continue the fight to escape and bring Harry to freedom no matter what. Stowe intensifies the emotional impact by showing maternal love as a source of physical power, framing motherhood as both sacred and revolutionary in the face of slavery’s violence.

Carlo’s role as George’s sole source of comfort humanizes George, while the master’s casual order to drown the dog exposes how easily affection and life are destroyed under slavery’s logic of ownership. The violent image of a animal, especially that of a dog that is typically seen as “man’s best friend(‘s) death—followed by George’s flogging for refusing to comply—forces readers to confront the system’s capacity to punish compassion itself.

Mr. Shelby’s claim that he is a “humane man” is immediately undercut by the reality of the situation: he is considering selling a child into slavery. Stowe uses this moment to expose the moral contradiction at the heart of “kind” slave holders—those who see themselves as compassionate while continuing to participate in an inhumane system. The word "thoughtfully" emphasizes his self-image as moral, even as his actions betray that belief. He may be more “humane” than other slave holders, but the word lacks meaning in this situation. It is simply a word to make himself feel better.

As brutal as the entire story is, this paragraph made me physically cringe with disgust. Not only because of the fact that Brown’s use of the word “tame” deliberately aligns the treatment of enslaved people with the domestication of animals, but that it illustrates how absolute power under slavery enabled personal vendettas to become legally sanctioned torture. To “tame” an animal implies breaking its will through confinement, pain, and forced labor—exactly the methods Robert More went out of his way to apply to John with chains, beatings, and exhausting work. This comparison exposes how slaveholders denied enslaved people their humanity, viewing them as creatures to be controlled rather than individuals capable of reason or dignity.

The pairing of the words “soul” with “driver” is extremely ironic in this line. Brown suggests that this role requires a person to suppress their own humanity and moral conscience (their soul) in order to enforce violence (lead those who trust him in the wrong direction). It explains how he was forced to discipline those just like him, putting him in the most impossible situation. This goes to show how slavery corrupts not only enslavers, but the enslaved themselves by coercing some into participating in the oppression of others.

Here, Brown describes how slavery strips those enslaved of family bonds. For example, in the line “slaves have no father,” it highlights the legal and social denial of kinship under enslavement which underscores how enslavement denies family, identity, and lineage. He then blames The American Union and constitution for this belittlement instead of blaming the individual slaveholders. By doing this, he tests the entire moral and political structure of the United States. However, the last line I highlighted “But the tide is turning” introduces a note of what one can only describe as cautious hope that will be brought by the abolitionist resistance.