Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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.

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.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs is a personal story that highlights the injustice of slavery. This book was based on the author’s

Harriet A. Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Jacobs’s construction of black female empowerment despite the limitations of slavery

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

In her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs is a slave that was born into slavery in 1813 that has decided to share her amazing story of slavery and her struggles to become free. When she was young her parents were “property” of a really nice lady that allowed her family to have a very comfortable life for a slave family. They were allowed to work for their own money and Harriet did not know that she was a slave for until she was twelve. When she was seven her master died and left her to her sister’s daughter who was five years old. She believed that it was not right to treat blacks in the way that whites did and that someone should not have to purchase themselves or their children. She believed that the whites were way too cruel. She eventually escaped to the north and eventually had someone purchase her freedom for her and her children. Reaching north, Harriet was relief and breath of freedom when she get out from the boat, not long after her arrival to the north she was reunited with her daughter and was ensured of her safety and good treatment she received. She found work in one house and find a friendship in the house she got work with a woman named Mr. Bruce who she was working for, her struggle in those days was been reduce, coming to the north would end all her painful sorrow and struggle. However, there is still another thing she

In the non-fiction book “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” by Harriet A. Jacobs and published in Boston in 1861. The author Jacobs was born into slavery in 1813, in a town called Edenton, North Carolina. Jacob uses the pseudonym Linda Brent to narrate her first person account. The book opens with Jacobs stating her reasons for writing a biography of her life story. Her story is agonizing and she had rather have kept it confidential, although she felt that by making it public that perhaps it might help the antislavery movement. A preface by Linda Child, states in the beginning of the book, “READER, be assured this narrative is no fiction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem incredible; but they are, nevertheless, strictly true” (Jacobs 5). I would like to explain the main themes in this story, they include family and community, dangers of slavery for women, motherhood, and altogether the corrupting power of slavery, religion, and last but not least perseverance.

Born as a slave in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813, Harriet Ann Jacobs was raised by her slave mother and father. Since Harriet’s father was very skillful in his trade of carpentry, he was allowed to pay his mistress 200 dollars a year to work at his trade and manage his own affairs. As a result, his family was able to live comfortably in their home, and Harriet was “fondly shielded that [she] never dreamed [she] was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them for safe keeping, and liable to be demanded of them at any moment,” unlike most other slave children (pp. 11-12). At age six, however, her mother died and she was sent to her mistress. Because her mother was such a faithful servant to her mistress and whiter foster sister, the mistress promised that Harriet and her younger brother William should never suffer for anything during her lifetime (pp. 14). Unfortunately, when Harriet was nearly twelve, her mistress had died, and so did her shielding from the harsh reality slaves had to face at that time. Rather than being granted her freedom, Harriet was willed to the daughter of Dr. James Norcom, who was portrayed as Dr. Flint in Harriet’s autobiography. As a result of his abusive and threatening treatment towards her, Harriet planned an elaborate escape from both him and slavery with the help of people such as her grandmother and the Sands family. Only in 1861, when Harriet was free, did she decide to write one of the most popular female antebellum slave narratives, Incidents

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

The book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is comparatively an autobiography of Harriet Jacobs’s alias Linda. Her early life is characterized by happiness, love and a promising future. She only discovers that she was born into slavery after her mother dies when she is six. Her mistress takes her and extends the love and freedom she had. She learns how to read, write, and sew from her. Unfortunately, at twelve years of age, her mistress dies and Jacobs' life takes a twist when she is bequeathed to the daughter of her mistress sister. Her "real" slavery begins in the house of a wealthy couple, Dr. Flint and Mrs. Flint. As a teenager, Jacobs is subjected to Dr. Flint's sexual harassment. To avert Dr. Flint’s advances, Young Jacobs engages in an affair with Mr. Sands, a white neighbor. This sexcapade results in two children with Mr. Sands, and instead of discouraging Flint’s affair, it enrages him and to punish her, he sends her to labor in his son's plantation.

Harriet Jacobs’s harrowing tale of a young slave’s life was based on her own experiences, making it a realistic recount of an enslaved life. Because of this fact, it is no surprise that the harsh reality of slavery is one of the themes of this novel. Even in the small excerpt given in this chapter, readers get a sense of how slavery affected Linda and her family. This theme was especially important at its publication time because there were many people who did not understand how terrible slavery truly was. There was a large amount of pro-slavery propaganda at this time portraying slaves as unintelligent and subhuman. Novels such as My Bondage and my Freedom and Incidents from the Life of a Slave Girl show a new side of slavery that were hardly told before. Linda is portrayed as a smart and kind young woman, miraculous considering her circumstances. Many americans at the time were beginning to realize that slavery was awful, but slavery-era literature would often evoke emotions inspiring them to take action. Southerners realized this and banned a large amount of anti-slavery literature, a famous example being Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Without the literature of the time, many people wouldn’t have understood the true horrors of slavery and the effect it had on the millions of slaves. This is why the theme of slavery in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

From Jacob’s standpoint she believed that she had horrible luck. The reason she thought this was, because she was always taken care of, attractive, and half black and half white. This lead to her always being sexually harassed. Therefore, this lead to Harriet becoming like a second wife in the perspective of Dr. Flint. Harriet reminisces about her life as slave by stating, “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 chattel, entirely subject to the will of another.”

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.

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.

Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl tells of her personal journey from being born a slave towards escaping to the north in her twenty-ninth year and finally gaining her freedom in 1852 at forty-nine. Jacob tells the story seeking not sympathy from her readers but in an attempt to open the minds of her free-born readers towards the movement of ending slavery for those born and traded in chains. In order to do so, she tells her story under the name of Linda, one woman’s experiences and observations of what truly happens in the lives of the slaves while directly addressing the contrast in how pro-slavery visitors view the slave’s lives to the true horrors it encompasses.