Harriet Jacobs: Life Of A Slave Girl

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.

Slavery was common in the eighteenth century. Slaves were seen as property, as they were taken from their native land and forced into long hours of labor. The experience was traumatic for both black men and black women. They were physically and mentally abused by slave owners, dehumanized by the system, and ultimately denied their fundamental rights to a favorable American life. Although African men and women were both subjected to the same enslavement, men and women had different experiences in slavery based on their gender. A male perspective can be seen in, My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass. A female perspective is shared in Harriet Jacobs’ narrative titled, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Upon reading both of the viewpoints provided, along with outside research, one can infer that women had it worse.

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.

Harriet A. Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an autobiography written under the name of Linda Brent. This autobiography is a detailed account of her life or lack thereof. I use the term lack thereof because Harriet Jacobs was raised by her grandmother due to her mother dying at a young age. Harriet was taught to read and write as a young slave girl by her mistress.

The feminist movement sought to gain rights for women. Many feminist during the early nineteenth century fought for the abolition of slavery around the world. The slave narrative became a powerful feminist tool in the nineteenth century. Black and white women are fictionalized and objectified in the slave narrative. White women are idealized as pure, angelic, and chaste while black woman are idealized as exotic and contained an uncontrollable, savage sexuality. Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl, brought the sexual oppression of captive black women into the public and political arena.

society (97). Harriet Jacobs’ life revolved around slavery from birth to death. Jacobs was a

In Shaping of the Modern World, we are learning about political and cultural changes around the world. Slavery is a significant topic in Shaping of the Modern World, how our world change throughout slavery and how slavery changes over time. In the narrative writing, Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, she talks about how her life changed while serving different and new masters and mistresses. I think that this narrative writing is an important text to help us understand the different perspectives of slavery in America. There are some slave owners that are kind and humane, and some slave owners that are cruel and abusive. Additionally, reading from a female slave’s perspectives teaches us that life on the plantations and life in the house is different. Especially as a female, they would get different treatment from their masters and mistresses. The text has changed my understanding of slavery that not all slave owners are harsh, and not all slaves are not intellectual.

Born in 1813, Harriet Jacobs enjoyed the life she lived until she was six years old, when her mother died. After her mother’s death, Jacob’s mistress, Aunt Martha (a pseudonym for Molly Horniblow), became responsible for her and taught her how to sew, write and read. Unfortunately for Jacobs, the death of her mistress turned her life upside down and opened the door to the horrible reality of what Jacobs true life was to become. Soon after Horniblow’s death, Jacobs was given to Horniblow’s niece. Being born into a slave, Jacobs soon faced the harsh new lifestyle that her new mistress’s father, Dr. Flint (a pseudonym for Dr. James Norcom), introduced her to by forcing Jacobs to sexual

Harriet Jacobs was a slave for ten years. Then after she began writing in 1853. Jacob 's work reflected style, tone, and plot. It has been known as the nostalgic or household novel, prevalent fiction of the mid nineteenth century. It was composed for women that focused on home, family, womanly, unobtrusiveness, and marriage. Jacobs utilized nostalgic fiction to obtain white audiences. Jacob 's works typify the strain between the clashing intentions that produced personal histories of slave life. Jacobs shows the circumstances that slaves were faced with. The narrator described that they were able to read and write which most slaves could not do

Harriet Jacobs said in her opening sentence “I would ten thousand times rather that my children should be the half-starved paupers of Ireland than to be the most pampered among the slaves of America.” (874) She’s giving us an example of how horrific it was to be a slave. She would much rather be poor in Ireland than have to live in America and be a slave to someone. Slavery was an awful time in history, and Harriet Jacobs is making sure she is heard. “I had entered my sixteenth year, and every day it became more apparent that my presence was intolerable to Mrs. flint.” (875) Most wives’ during these times weren’t happy with the way they handled some of their female slaves. They would treat some very nicely not wanting to punish them or be mean to them. There is also the side of rape and the poor slaves couldn’t do anything to stop it. It’s not hard to see why some wife’s would lose some trust in their husbands. Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs is a very tough girl that has put up with a lot of slavery and bad treatments in her life such as being horribly punished for her actions. I have

One particular aspect of Harriet Jacobs' diction in "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" that I have noticed in the readings for October 4, is the pitying of Jacobs; specifically, the verbal expression of her as "poor". There were three instances I found when the term "poor" was used in relation to Jacobs. The first being where Jacobs describes her being unaware of the situation of her children's emancipation from Dr. Flint and is only able to hear a few voices discussing about it until Betty is able to tell her the true story. Betty calls Jacobs a "poor creeter" for having to wait so long about hearing of her kid's fate (88). Later, Jacobs' grandmother calls her a "poor thing" for having to drag herself from her confined hiding place

Educating the North of the horrors of slavery through the use of literature was one strategy that led to the questioning, and ultimately, the abolition of slavery. Therefore, Harriet Jacobs’s narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is very effective in using various tactics in order to get women in the North to pay attention and question the horrifying conditions in the South. By acknowledging that not all slaveholders were inhumane, explaining the horrific abuse and punishments slaves endured, and comparing the manner in which whites and slaves spent their holidays, Jacobs’s narrative serves its purpose of arousing Northern women to take notice of the appalling conditions two million Southern slaves continued to endure.

Wolfe points out that there are two agendas in the mind of Harriet Jacobs while writing the novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Wolfe claims that Jacobs has two different audiences that she is addressing in her novel as well. According the article written by Wolfe (518), Jacobs writes in such a way that the black community understands her messages without being offensive towards the white community and this is called double-voicedness. Jacobs's double-voicedness, “enables her to keep clear instructions for her black brothers in the North a secret in such a way that white readers will not find her message obvious or offensive.” After reading Wolfe’s article it seems as though Jacobs wanted her agenda to be known by all the people living in the free states, and be able to convince these people what slavery really is, and how to resist the racism and discrimination that comes after slavery.

Karl Marx once said that “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Perhaps this is the ideology that kept some 3 million American slaves in bondage. Since the beginning of time, slavery has been well documented throughout the Bible. This proves that there is a direct correlation between slavery and religion. The Old Testament is comprised of stories and lessons that document these histories of mankind.