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Understanding the importance of this novel in American culture reminds readers of how central women were to literary life before the Civil War, and how openly they engaged themselves with topics that, supposedly, were outside their sphere (Baym 773). .
Eliza, Eva, Mrs. Bird, and Mrs. Shelby all exhibit remarkable power and understanding of good over evil in ways that most of the male characters in the novel do not show. Uncle Tom's Cabin not only follows the life of Uncle Tom, spanning from the time he is sold from his longtime master until Tom's death, but also follows the life of Eliza, another slave who lives on the Shelby plantation with Tom. Unlike Tom, who is determined to better himself (although his firm belief in the Bible will not let him rebel), Eliza will not stand for the life of a slave any longer, especially when Mr. Shelby sells her son Harry in order to pay off his debts (Carey 7). In a show of strength, Eliza makes a run on the Underground Railroad from Kentucky through Ohio and the northern United States in order to make it to Canada. The trip is one of enormous emotional and physical pain, but Eliza never quits. .
". . . she vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;--stumbling "leaping "slipping "springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone "her stockings cut from her feet "while blood marked every step, but she saw nothing, felt nothing. . . ."" (Stowe 94).
Not only did Eliza continue to jump from ice block to ice block, cutting her feet along the way, but the three men following her did not attempt to do the same. Instead, they "instinctively cried out, and lifted up their hands- (94). .
Another female in Uncle Tom's Cabin who exhibits enormous strength is Eva St.
