6 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
    1. “My dear,” said Mrs. Shelby, recollecting herself, “forgive me. I have been hasty. I was surprised, and entirely unprepared for this;—but surely you will allow me to intercede for these poor creatures. Tom is a noble-hearted, faithful fellow, if he is black. I do believe, Mr. Shelby, that if he were put to it, he would lay down his life for you.”

      Once more, despite the difference in race and the effects of the time, Mrs. Shelby stands up for Tom, Harry, and even Eliza, questioning her husband's decision of choosing to sell them and how they would risk their lives for him, while he would not do the same.

    2. “What! our Tom?—that good, faithful creature!—been your faithful servant from a boy! O, Mr. Shelby!—and you have promised him his freedom, too,—you and I have spoken to him a hundred times of it. Well, I can believe anything now,—I can believe now that you could sell little Harry, poor Eliza’s only child!” said Mrs. Shelby, in a tone between grief and indignation.

      This passage here presents how, despite the differences in race and the effects of the time, Mrs. Shelby truly does care for Tom, Harry, and even Eliza, so much so she feels willing to uphold the promise of granting Tom his freedom.

    3. “Hush, Harry,” she said; “mustn’t speak loud, or they will hear us. A wicked man was coming to take little Harry away from his mother, and carry him ’way off in the dark; but mother won’t let him—she’s going to put on her little boy’s cap and coat, and run off with him, so the ugly man can’t catch him.”

      This whole paragraph brilliantly showcases to the audience how Stowe expertly uses motherhood, appealing to the audience's sympathy by presenting how Harry's mother is willing to sacrifice herself and get into deeper trouble if it means sparing her son from being sold off and taken from her.

  2. Jan 2026
    1. After beating me to his satisfaction, he let me go, and I returned to the office so weak from the loss of blood, that Mr. Lovejoy sent me home to my master. It was five weeks before I was able to walk again.

      Once more, Brown presents the brutality of the treatment faced upon him for his race and for his actions, quite literally being beaten to a pulp and rendered bedridden for over a month, again showcasing the harsh severity of treatment placed upon those like Brown during this time and the seeming normalization of it all.

    2. There were ten or twelve servants in the house, and when he was present, it was cut and slash—knock down and drag out. In his fits of anger, he would take up a chair, and throw it at a servant; and in his more rational moments, when he wished to chastise one, he would tie them up in the smoke-house, and whip them

      In this description, Brown, in great detail, highlights the torturous abuse and inhumanity people like himself and his mother were treated to, acts of violence and terror that are in this manner seemingly normalized due to how commonplace they have become. It both showcases the brutality of the acts themselves, yet the brutality of humanity during such a time.

    3. It is an influence which goes forth noiselessly upon its mission, but fails not to find its way to many a warm heart, to kindle on the altar thereof the fires of freedom, which will one day break forth in a living flame to consume oppression.

      In this statement of the Preface, Brown states that, while the purpose of narratives and memoirs such as these remain "noiseless," they still manage to find their way to those willing to hear their message and sow change against this awful injustice, be it those who volleyed for abolition in the past or those that fight for equal rights of the present.