Haley arrives and the other slaves lose no time in telling him Eliza and the boy are gone Haley is persuaded, with some difficulty, that Shelby was not an accomplice in their leaving and that he will assist in a search for them. The next morning, Eliza is found missing. Eliza asks them to tell her husband what she has done and that she will try to make it to Canada. Tom looks at his sleeping children and weeps. She goes first to warn Tom and Chloe, and Chloe urges her husband to run away, too, but Tom refuses, saying Eliza is right to go but he has no choice except to fulfill his master's bargain. She packs what she can and leaves the house, carrying her child and few possessions. Shelby says she always knew slavery was evil now she dreads having to tell Eliza.īut Eliza has overheard. Shelby admits that Haley held a mortgage on their property and that he was forced to choose between selling those two and selling everything, including all their slaves. Shelby is horrified he has promised Tom his freedom, and she has assured Eliza her child is safe. Shelby tells his wife that he has sold Tom and little Harry. The reader breathes a sigh of relief for Emmeline – and a sigh of pain for her real-life counterparts, who usually weren’t so lucky.Later that evening, Mr. Though she is timid, Emmeline bonds quickly with Cassy and they escape from Legree together. After this, Stowe doesn’t even need to show us a rape scene – we get it. One of the most disturbing scenes in the novel is Legree’s treatment of Emmeline at the slave warehouse – he walks right up to her, looks at her teeth, and gropes her body in a sickening, dehumanizing way. Nevertheless, it becomes obvious to the horrified reader that many girls like Emmeline are raped by white slave owners on a regular basis. Stowe leaves matters ambiguous as to whether Legree ever does rape Emmeline, although she implies that a combination of Cassy’s protective influence and Legree’s superstitious fears keep him away from the girl until she escapes. Separated from her mom at the auction block, Emmeline is bought by Simon Legree, who intends to keep her as his sex slave, a younger replacement for Cassy. Emmeline, a beautiful fifteen-year-old slave girl, has been raised in an upper-class household by a Christian mother.
0 kommentar(er)
