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As Tom looks up to Legree and tells him he would give everything in him if it was eeded, Stowe illustrates the ability the human spirit has to overcome suffering. With Tom being the example, Stowe uses the Christian faith as fuel to his ability to be Christ-like throughout the novel. As Tom chooses to stay and not flee with Eliza, he feels It was the right thing to do. When he Is sold from the Shelby’s to Haley, then to the St. clalres, then finally ending with Legree, Tom consistently obeyed his master despite their good or bad nature.
Stowe describes him has “childlike” at times, representing the goodness of God. In this quote, Tom maintains a level of affection that a child would have towards a parent. The child still seeks approval and giving endless love regardless of how their parent treats them. “Mas’r, If you was sick, or In trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, ld give ye my heart’s blood: and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I’d give ’em freely, as the Lord gave his for me. ” Tom gave to each person he came in contact with.
The Shelby family adored him to where Mrs. Shelby told Tom she would find a way to buy him back and bring him home. He was tortured for the information of the whereabouts of Cassy and Emmeline, but refused n his heart when no one with an ounce of weakness could have. The unexpected ability to still be “good” even after he had been sold three times, lost his family and experienced a loss of innocence. This innocence was Eva. As the characters of Eva’s parents are revealed, there is a wonder how Eva turned out with a kind soul.
Stowe uses Eva as an angelic creature, not allowing Eva’s illness to influence the effect she has on others. As Tom inspires love in these last words to Legree, Eva spoke of kindness in her last words as well. In this last face off of Tom and Legree, Stowe ensures that the spirit of good prevails over evil. Tom tells Legree not to put “this great sin on his soul”. Whether his motives were to stop the beating or truly looking for Legree’s soul, Tom wins by telling Legree that he will win in the end.
It does not matter what Legree does because Tom’s struggles will be over soon. In ever situation where Stowe puts good against evil, good overcomes by the standards of the Christian faith. When we compare Haley and Shelby, Stowe sets them up as oppositions. While both are buy and sell slaves, Haley is seen as someone who treats them as things, whereas the Shelby family genuinely respects the members of their establishment. Stowe’s evil, Haley, looses Eliza and essentially looses money in his eyes.
Stowe’s good, the Shelbys, returns to bring Tom back home, only to find he has passed. The impact of these words said by Tom in this moment is to show the reader that if you have faith and believe in a higher power, you will be good like Tom. Stowe romanticizes the idea that being Christ-like in the moments where we are tested the most, enables us to find an Almighty that was worth the fight for. Stowe implies a level of ignorance in Legree on page 347 when she says “No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.
The Christian is composed by the belief of wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who had dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, “a land of darkness and the shadow of death,” without any order, where the light is as darkness. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread. ” As Tom tells Legree that his troubles will never end if he does not repent, Stowe captures the intent of following the Christian ways to the salvation of the human spirit.