In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, irony is used to display the evil of slavery. Throughout the story, the various slaves the story follows occasionally meet a ‘benevolent’ slave owner. From Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, who treat their slaves with respect, to Eva St. Clare, the daughter of a plantation owner in Louisiana, some white slave owners respected the humanity their slaves possessed while wishing for the abolishment of slavery. Slavery had a great economic benefit to the white slave owning classes in the South of the United States. Legally classified as property, the black slaves were at the whim of their masters. As such, many slaves were worked to death, while others were beaten and whipped for upsetting their masters. The quality of life the slaves would experience was entirely left up to the kindness of their owners.

For example, Eva St. Clare shares her love with all members of the household in which she lives. She loves her white slave owning family in addition to the numerous slaves her family owns. Upon her death bed, Eva wishes for Tom’s freedom and her father agrees. Unfortunately, Eva’s father is killed soon after her death and Tom is not freed as Marie, Eva’s mother, is now his owner. Marie decides to sell Tom who eventually comes under the ownership of Legree, a cruel plantation owner. Tom is eventually severely beaten and later dies from his wounds following his reunification with George Shelby, the son of Arthur Shelby. The Shelby family respected their slaves and only sold Tom as they had accumulated financial debt. This led Tom to be bought and sold a series of times to different slave owners. After seeing Uncle Tom die, George Shelby vows to do anything he can to have slavery abolished.

Though various characters respected their slaves and claimed to want an end to slavery, many white slave owners benefited from slavery as a system. Though George Shelby was upset at the end of Tom’s life and decides to try and end slavery, his family enabled Tom to exist within a system that would allow his death without justification. Though some slave owners may have been legitimately kind people, the system of slavery was always cruel and unpredictable to the black population as whites benefited from their suffering. The system was so large that no individual could have ended the system on their own. The irony Stowe utilizes in the story, shows how even a kind slave owner enabled the growth and strength of the system that subjugated the black population in slave states.