But within the patterns of movement, something else becomes apparent. As art teachers used to tell their students tirelessly, the asymmetrical elements of a design convey movement and interest, while the symmetrical ones, which need not be obvious, give strength and solidity. An examination of the chapter arrangement in Uncle Tom's Cabin reveals, beneath the conscious asymmetry, a symmetry of ironic juxtaposition that further enhances our understanding of the novel's structure.
First, we may notice that Chapters 7 and 38, near the beginning and near the end of the book (at exactly the same respective distance from each, in fact, if "Concluding Remarks" is seen as an epilogue rather than an actual part of the novel) are oddly mirror-images of each other: in the first, Eliza is almost captured by Haley, but in desperation (and with the help of a miracle, according to Black Sam's eyewitness interpretation of the event) crosses the icy river to safe haven. In the second, Legree nearly pushes Tom over the brink of despair, but in a desperation described as "numb" (and with the help of a miracle — a vision of Jesus as he gazes at the dying fire), Tom gains a new and unremitting hold on his faith. The first of these chapters is entitled "The Mother's Struggle"; the second is "The Victory."
Two more events are similarly juxtaposed, both near the middle of the book: Prue's death at the beginning of Chapter 19 and Eva's at the end of Chapter 26. The death of little Eva was, for many nineteenth-century readers, the emotional heart of the novel, the sentimentalized scene of a "beautiful" death, with the dying child surrounded by the tears and prayers of those who love her. Set across from this, in what must be nearly the most unrelentingly bitter irony in literature, is the death of the old slave woman, beaten horribly and left alone in the cellar. (The reader who believes Uncle Tom's Cabin to be a children's book — or its author to be a gentle sentimentalist — should re-read the passage in which this death is described.)
