The contrast between these two mother figures joins a
number of similarly pointed parallels and contrasts throughout the
text of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The text repeatedly
employs such couplings as a rhetorical tool, showing the superiority
of one side of the pair over the other. Thus, it establishes oppositions
between slavery and Christian love, or between an idealized girl
such as Eva and a vicious woman such as Marie. The novel also uses
parallelism and counterpart as a structural device, dividing itself
into two main plots, the story of Uncle Tom and the story of George
and Eliza. The “slave narrative” of Uncle Tom contrasts with the
“escape narrative” of George and Eliza. As George and Eliza grow
closer to freedom, Tom finds himself in more oppressive conditions
of slavery. The interrelationship between the two serves to highlight
the triumphs of George and Eliza and the sorrows of Uncle Tom, endowing
both stories with extra force.
As George and Eliza reach Canada and freedom, Tom finds oppression
and death in rural Louisiana. In this contrast, the reader begins
to see the symbolic function of geography in the novel. As the two
plots diverge, one moving to the North and the other to the South,
the North becomes synonymous with freedom, and the South with slavery.
Obviously, these symbols have roots in historical reality. But it
is important to note how Stowe works this geographical contrast
into her structural technique, creating increasingly disparate settings
in which to portray the increasingly disparate conditions of the
novel’s main characters.
