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Motif
Explanation and Analysis—Flowers:
Flowers appear frequently throughout the novel and are a motif. In literature, flowers are typically associated with vitality, beauty, and love. Uncle Tom's cabin, for example, is surrounded by "scarlet begonia and a native multiflora rose," a description that emphasizes the cabin's pleasing, domestic nature. Flowers eventually become associated with the characters Eva St. Clare, Uncle Tom, and Topsy. This association is evident in the below passage from Chapter 16, for example, when the narrator describes Uncle Tom and Eva sitting together:
There sat Tom, on a little mossy seat in the court, every one of his buttonholes stuck full of cape jessamines, and Eva, gayly laughing, was hanging a wreath of roses around his neck; and then she sat down on his knee, like a chip-sparrow, still laughing.
The bright, joyful flowers on Uncle Tom symbolizes the affection he and Eva have for one another. Note how the narrator also uses a simile to compare Eva to a bird "landing" on the "branch" of Uncle Tom's knee. These details, all in all, portray the two as harmless and innocent. This is unsurprising, given that both characters become martyrs, or Christ-like figures, by the novel's end.
In Chapter 26, Topsy brings a bouquet of flowers to Eva when she is on her deathbed, a gesture that symbolizes her newfound "goodness":
It’s a beautiful bouquet! said Eva, looking at it. It was rather a singular one,—a brilliant scarlet geranium, and one single white japonica, with its glossy leaves. It was tied up with an evident eye to the contrast of color, and the arrangement of every leaf had carefully been studied.
Topsy's gesture is a significant moment in the novel. Throughout the narrative, Topsy is characterized as unable to express or receive affection, a result of the abuse she experiences in enslavement. In giving Eva a bouquet of striking, beautiful flowers, Topsy has finally learned to befriend another person and express affection for them. Rather than explaining Topsy's transformation to the reader, Beecher Stowe uses the motif of flowers to present the transformation in a figurative way.
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