These two chapters finish laying the groundwork for the Eliza plot, and they introduce the character George Harris. Eliza and George are two important characters in the book, as they are the central characters of the second plot. Neither, however, is really a developing character. Eliza is a stereotypical young mother of sentimental fiction, conventionally beautiful, conventionally attached to husband and child. It is the loss of her first two babies that makes her attachment to Harry strong enough to support her behavior in later chapters, which the narrator does not fail to remind us, for that behavior is not that of a conventional sentimental heroine. We are also told, later, that Eliza's character has matured and deepened, but in fact this is never actually shown, for as a character Eliza is less important than she is as a type: Readers who have found this type of character attractive in other books, and who are thus able to identify with Eliza on a conventional level, may be surprised when they realize they are sympathizing and identifying with a woman of color; this of course may have been Stowe's purpose in so portraying Eliza.
George, too, is a conventional sentimental hero with enough spirit and spark in him to make him probably more attractive to a modern reader than is his wife. We like George almost immediately for his anger, for his outraged assertion that he is a better man in every way than his master. We like him for his adventurous spirit, his willingness to undergo hardships and take risks. Conventionally, all this is for his wife and child, but as George is portrayed, we suspect that he would be as bold and adventurous even if he were not married. Much later in the novel, we learn that George is studious and philosophical, but we see him throughout as a man of action, and he does not really change. Like Eliza, George is a relatively static character, functioning as a type rather than as an individual. Although he plays a relatively small part in the book, he is the most thoroughly likeable, albeit the most conventional, of its male protagonists. Again, this may have been Stowe's intent: Male and female readers would both have found George attractive, and white readers would not have seen him as exotic or alien. Even George's assertive masculinity cannot make him seem threatening, for he is domesticated by his loving marriage and is a faithful husband to the beautiful Eliza, another characteristic of his type as found in the fashionable fiction of the day.
