Character Analysis: Harriet Jacobs

Jacobs was a young female and she was unfortunately born into slavery in 1813. Jacobs had a relatively normal life until she was six years of age and her mother

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs strongly speaks to its readers by describing the brutalities of slavery and the way slave owners can destroy peaceful lives. After reading and rereading the story have noticed certain things regarding how Jacobs tries to educate her readers and her intended audience which is the women of the North. As if we do not know enough about how terrible slavery is, this story gives detailed examples of the lives of slaves and provokes an incredible amount of emotions. She uses several tactics in her writing to reach her desired audience and does so very well.

Based on the writing of Harriet and John Jacobs, compare and contrast the experiences of male and female slaves.

Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass were both slaves that wrote about their struggles and pain during their years of slavery. Both stories were the same but also very different. Both Jacobs and Douglass were born into slavery. The stories were written by authors that finally gained their freedom from slavery. Jacob’s wrote “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and Frederick Douglass wrote, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”. Jacob’s wrote it in a woman point of view and gave us a look at how the women that were slaves experienced life; whereas Douglass wrote as a male slave and the brutality.

“Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom…entirely subject to the will of another.” Jacobs’ story conveyed pathos, or emotional appeal, as she spoke directly to her readers several times throughout the narrative. Her language choice affected the audience's emotional response, especially when they became aware that she was telling the truth. Jacobs was willing to share her personal, and in some ways shameful, past for the greater good. She wanted her readers to understand the perils of enslavement, and try to relate to what it feels like to be owned by another human being. Only then could they sympathize with the antislavery movement.

In these two tales of brutal bondage, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the modern reader can decipher two vastly different experiences from circumstances that were not altogether that dissimilar. Both narratives tell the story of a slave gaining his or her freedom from cruel masters, yes, but that is where the most prominent similarities end. Not only are they factually different, these stories are entirely distinct in their themes.

Jacobs bravely tells her story about escaping slavery with her children. She was the first writer to show the grisly details of slavery and discuss sexual abuse. Jacobs criticizes herself for getting pregnant to get out of the sexual abusive relationship of her slave owner by saying “I felt as if I was forsaken by God and man; as if all my efforts must be frustrated; and I became reckless in my despair” (Jacobs 2194). Jacobs had to hide for almost seven years in her grandmother’s attic in attempt to gain her and her children’s freedom from their former slave-owners (Yellin 2185). In 1852, Mrs. Willis, a family friend, bought Jacobs freedom, for which Jacobs felt “I was robbed of my victory” because she considered herself a person, unable to be bought or sold (Yellin 2185). Harriet Ann Jacobs publishes her story to open people’s eyes to what slavery really was.

Freedom, what every (at least most if not all) slave looked forward to was pushed farther away from them. Hence every slave’s attempt to escape from slavery would always have a tragic end. Jacobs’ perception of freedom was different from what other slaves saw as freedom. The common practice was to work hard and buy your freedom from your master but because she was enlightened, she did not accept that as a good way to gain freedom. From my own point of view, Jacobs did not just want to gain her freedom for just her sake but she tried to abolish some of the practices that misinterpret man’s status. Jacobs’ love for humanity was what she was fighting for. No wonder she had mixed feelings of happiness and unhappiness when her freedom was bought, happiness in the sense that she was free at last but she was unhappy because at the end, she was still treated as a property and not as a human, as it ought to be. Jacobs’ main inspiration for such actions she took might have come from the fact that she did not want her children to continue living as slaves, and for this I think she fought so hard.

John S. Jacobs acknowledges that slavery is more emotionally impactful for woman because they can loss their children at any moment. Harriet loses her children by not being able to see them face to face, because she is hiding in her grandmother’s attic. John tries to ease his Grandmother’s burden

The actual and symbolic geography of the slave narrative moved inexorably from the South to the North. The southern landscape was depicted in terms of imprisonment, confinement, and slavery, while the North was inevitably identified with freedom. Once the narrator achieved freedom and arrived safely in the North, the narrative ended, sometimes very abruptly. The North was often depicted in glowing rhetorical terms, and one important social/literary convention was that one did not dwell too harshly on the less-than-hospitable conditions that fugitive slaves often encountered. One did not, after all, want to unnecessarily offend the sensibilities of one's hosts, patrons, and readers. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, however, Jacobs was very outspoken about the racism she encountered in New York City and the North.

Jacobs is born to her mother in the southern states of America. She is born without freedom and rights as she is black, property to her master as a slave. Her mother is a slave to a man name Dr. Flint and so therefor she too is a slave of his property. On page 26, the first sentence of chapter 5, Jacobs states "During the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress. Thought this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and tried to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties." Harriet shows gratefulness for a period of time that she is a slave. The next line says "But I now entered on my fifteenth year -- a sad epoch in the life of a slave." Harriet starts to show hatred for her slavery and sadness. As a fifteenth year slave she is getting tired of how she is being treated, many girls that are her age at this time would be very frustrated with this too.

Slavery was a challenging and uncomfortable life for the slaves such as Jacobs. Her mistress watched over her when she was sleeping trying to provoke Jacobs into accuse herself of attempting to seduce the mistress’s husband. Slave narratives have gothic elements to it because Jacobs was fearful of her life and her mistress watched over her when Jacobs was variable from being asleep. Jacobs describes how she was in her grandmother’s attic for seven years and

Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl had a different explanation narrative story than any other slavery stories we had read, especially with male-authored narrative because Jacob was engaging the readers with the issue she had challenged in her time period. Jacob mentions that her family was the most important people in her life because she gave us an idea that her family were depended to her emotional support (153-155). In fact, family was the most important mechanism for many slaves because they were dependent on each other for friendship, especially to maintain their confidence no matter what the situation they are going through.

Growing up as a slave Jacobs was constantly exposed to sexual abuse from her master. She was forced to learn what it meant to be a slave that was

Jacobs creates a connection by demonstrating her horrible experience as a slave and her humiliation in her choices to escape it: “Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another” (919). This shows that Jacobs attempts a draw an emotional response from free women so they will her understand of not only her experience as a female slave, but of many enslaved women that were subject to the same abuse as she. Nudelman states that on the title page of the first edition “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” there is the Scripture Isaiah 32:9: “Rise up, ye women that are at ease! Hear my voice, ye care less daughters! Give ear unto my speech.” This illustrates Jacobs’ motive of mobilizing free women to look upon enslaved women, pity them, and strive to free them. Continuing, Jacobs also uses her time in her grandmother’s crawl space to establish a connection with her female audience with a motherly dilemma. She is able to see her children, but she is unable to speak to them, nor give them the knowledge that she is directly above them (923). Mothers could sympathize with Jacobs wondering how they would respond if they were separated from their kids.