Differences Between Male And Female Slave Experience

From learning this we know Harriet is not in for a good future with this family. The way Jacobs describes the importance of the women in her life is inspiring, given that, at the time they had such little power and such few rights. “Mrs. Flint, like many southern women, was totally deficient in energy. She had not the strength to superintend her household affairs; but her nerves were so strong, that she could sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped, till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash” (Jacobs 360). The way she describes Mrs. Flint perfectly captures what all women in the south were like. This portrays an excellent example to Northern women how serious slavery can affect a person.

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave” by Harriet Jacobs is an autobiographical narrative. It gives us a look inside in how the lives of slave women were, the troubles they faced and how they met them, especially the sexual abuses they suffered by their masters. She tells us how her master had the “right” to impregnate the slave and then that child would have to follow in its mother’s life as a slave. It took a lot of courage to stand

In "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", Harriet Jacobs writes, "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women" (64). Jacobs' work shows the evils of slavery as being worse in a woman's case by the gender. Jacobs elucidates the disparity between societal dictates of what the proper roles were for Nineteenth century women and the manner that slavery prevented a woman from fulfilling these roles. The book illustrates the double standard of for white women versus black women. Harriet Jacobs serves as an example of the female slave's desire to maintain the prescribed virtues but how her circumstances often prevented her from practicing.

When slavery was present in the United States, life was very hard for many slaves. They would spend their days working in the fields or in the home, doing whatever their master called upon. Slaveholders also held the power over their slaves treating them however they pleased. Most slaveholders were cruel which led to the slaves to do anything they could to avoid their master’s treatment and hope for a better life in the North. The North was filled with freedom, hope, desire and equality for people. It sounded like paradise to most slaves which was the proper motivation they needed to escape from their masters. Many slaves had goals of making in up North

Harriet Hanson Robinson and Harriet Jacobs may have shared a name, however their lives as a whole were quite different from one another. Both born in the early 1800s, Robinson and Jacobs led very different lives; Robinson, who lived in the North, was a mill girl, Jacobs, who lived in the South, was a slave. Even just by simply reading this statement, it is quite obvious that although they were born roughly around the same time, their lives and experiences did not overlap much at all. Although there are some similarities in respects to early life and slightly later on in life, most of the experiences that Robinson and Jacobs lived through were specific to the time and location they lived during. Harriet Hanson Robinson and Harriet Jacobs lived lives that were slightly reminiscent of each other, however, overall, their lives were far more different than they were similar.

Comparing Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Men and Women’s treatment has been different as long as the two have been around to notice the difference. Even in the realm of slavery women and men were not treated the same although both were treated in horrible ways. Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass’ story is very similar both were born into slavery and later rose above the oppression to become molders of minds. In time of subjugation to African Americans these two writers rose up and did great things especially with their writing. Both Douglass and Jacobs’ experienced different types of slavery, it shaped their perspective on everything and it also shows the importance of their freedom.

Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: A Harrowing Escape from Abuse

Harriet Jacobs, a black woman who escapes slavery, illustrates in her biography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) that death is preferable to life as a slave due to the unbearable degradation of being regarded as property, the inevitable destruction of slave children’s innocence, and the emotional and physical pain inflicted by slave masters. Through numerous rhetorical strategies such as allusion, comparison, tone, irony, and paradoxical expression, she recounts her personal tragedies with brutal honesty. Jacobs’s purpose is to combat the deceptive positive portrayals of slavery spread by southern slave holders through revealing the true magnitude of its horrors. Her intended audience is uninvolved northerners, especially women, and she develops a personal and emotionally charged relationship with them.

During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.

The experiences, memories and treatment in any situation are viewed upon differently between a man and a woman. Obvious in the case of slavery, the two sexes were treated differently and so therefore their recollections of such events were-different. In the following short essay, we look closely at the perspective of the female slave, Harriet Jacobs in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, and respectfully compared to that of a man slave, Frederick Douglass in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. Although both experienced their freedoms despite facing great

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.

Harriet Jacob was the first African American women to have authored a slave narrative in the United States and was instinctive into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina. Living a good life with her skilled carpentered father and her mother, Jacob didn’t much of being a slave. However, when her mother had passed away, Jacob and her father were reassigned to a different slave owner were her life as a women slave began. Because of this change, she fled to New York where she started working in the Anti-Slavery movement. During this period, she focused more on her family then she did the issue of slavery. Family is an emotional anchor in the Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl because Linda was devoted to her children. She uses symbolism, imagery, and allegory because she wants to demonstrate what families should be like.

In "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", Harriet Jacobs writes, "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women" (64). Jacobs' work presents the evils of slavery as being worse in a woman's case due to the tenets of gender identity. Jacobs elucidates the disparity between societal dictates of what the proper roles were for Nineteenth century women and the manner that slavery prevented a woman from fulfilling these roles. The book illustrates the double standard of for white women versus black women. Harriet Jacobs serves as an example of the female slave's desire to maintain the prescribed virtues but how her circumstances often prevented her from practicing.

Slavery was a horrible institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It wasn't less severe, but it was different. The sexual abuse, child bearing, and child care responsibilities affected the females's pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, demonstrates the different role that women slaves had and the struggles that were caused from having to cope with sexual abuse.