Essay on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs

       Jacobs made many other attempts to appeal to the righteousness of the women in the North as well.  She repeatedly told of the threat or reality of children being separated from their mothers; of young girls being exposed to foul language and inappropriate sexual advances, including rape; and of the disposal of elderly slaves without any consideration for their years of loyalty.  She also tried to depict slaves as spiritual beings that were often denied the right to religious practices.  Again, this was to demonstrate how slavery corrupted an otherwise moral people.  However, she ventured further in this aspect by illustrating the many ways in which slavery demoralized the whites of the South

Harriet Ann Jacobs is a name that has rang bells throughout the world since the republication of her most phenomenal work, Incidents of a Slave Girl in 1973. Although, the story recalls various events of Jacobs’ life she chose to use pseudonyms to prevent the attention and ridicule of being a candid writer during such a sensitive time in America. Harriet Ann (Brent) Jacobs was born 1813 in Edenton, North Carolina to enslaved parents Delilah and Elijah Jacobs (Harriet Jacobs). For the first couple years of Harriet’s life she lived what she thought was a suitable rural life for a young girl. However at six years old Harriet’s innocent life would experience a turmoil of descending events. After Jacobs’ parents’ death, she is taken into custody

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

Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs accentuates that the slavery system is evil and no good can be associated with it. Jacobs shows that slavery by its very nature extinguishes the morality and ethical values of slaveholders. Likewise, she highlights on the physical, psychological, health, social, and mental adverse implications of the slavery systems to the victims. Contrary, the seventh Vice-President of the United States of America and longtime Senator John C. Calhoun propagates on the significance of the slavery institution citing the benefits to the slaveholders and the slaves. This paper will provide a critical evaluation of Harriet Jacob’s condemnation of slavery in the context of the address by

In the end, Harriet Jacobs has many themes in then over all the incident life of a slave girl, but the more so important one were her family, childhood, protecting her identity and, the way many female slaves were treated by their masters, the sexual abuse at the this time period. Even though in the novel her and her brother are sold to a master when her parents die, she never talks negative about her family and the effects her family members had on her childhood and life. Having herself had a different identity and name help protect her life from

A Slave Narrative Fiction is literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people. Many scholars believed “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs was fiction before the early 1980’s. This autobiography tells the world the remarkable life of Harriet Jacobs. The book consists of torture, abuse, and the horrors she suffered as a slave girl. This is a rare look from a firsthand account of a women determined to show the world what was going on during her life.

In the book incidents in the life of a slave, by Harriet Jacobs. Her story was painful, sad and mind blowing. What Iinda had to go through was unbelievable, a 14-year-old girl getting assaulted by a 40-year-old white man really disgusts me. The fact that he had the power to do anything to her because he owns her made me feel so bad for her because she already been through so much. She was afraid to go to sleep in her room because she didn’t know if he was going to come in her room to rape her. Iinda sanitary place should be her room that’s where you should feel the safest in. but she is scared to even go to sleep at night because of this monster. Mrs. Flint supposedly Christian, but she whipped slaves until they bleed and splits in their food.

George Fitzhugh, a strong advocate who defends slavery, states that the masters shield the woman from their husband’s words, but Harriet Jacobs opposes. Fitzhugh wrote the address, “The Blessings of Slavery,” and one of his claims directed attention to how the slave masters treat their slaves. He states that the slaves “do little hard work” and are “protected from the despotism” (CITATIONNN) George Fitzhugh is iterating how the women are cared for and protected from harm and abuse. Meanwhile, Harriet Jacobs has been a slave for the Flint family for a few years and has been sharing indulgences with her mistress’s children, but as she enters her fifteenth year, Mr. Flint, her master, has been turning over a new leaf of being a cruel man. According to Jacobs, he had begun to “whisper foul words in my ear” and was a “crafty man”. (Page NUMBERRR) Harriet Jacobs’ life had just become a pawn in her slave master’s chess game. He

Jacobs tries to speak out to the women in the North by talking about motherhood and sexual behavior, things they can relate to. She talks about her children and the unfortunate death of one of them. Losing a child is one of the most horrible things that could happen to a mother. Jacobs talks about this painful occurrence to strike the hearts and mothering nature of white women. Why does she want to reach to the hearts of these women? Maybe it is because Jacobs says that no one could really understand the seriousness of slavery unless they have gone through it. So, in order to have people understand her she had to find people that could relate to her and that she could relate to so that her point could be better understood. So, she talks out to women because what happened to her with her child

In the personal narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, author Harriet Jacobs depicts the various struggles she endured in the course of her life as a young female slave and, as she grew older, a runaway escaped to the “free” land of the North, referring to herself as Linda Brent. Throughout this story, Jacobs places a heavy emphasis on the ways in which Brent and other women were personally victimized by their masters. As detailed in a chapter titled “The Trials of Girlhood,” slave owner and sexual predator Dr. Flint begins to verbally harass the young girl, who is only 15 years old. He terrorizes her with threats of sexual violence, claiming that “[she] was his property; and that [she] must be subject to his will in all things” (Jacobs, 231). Living in constant fear of Dr. Flint and his intentions for her, and having no way of escaping him, she took a lover and became pregnant in an attempt to thwart his plans and perhaps prompt him to sell her to this other man. However, Dr. Flint does not act as she had hoped, even after she has a second child later

As Jacobs grew older in Dr. Flint’s family she was accustomed to share things with the children of the mistress. Women of slavery during this time would be frequently called to even nurse their mistresses ' children so that even the mother was not disturbed in her sleep by her own child. Jacobs herself speaks of her Aunt Nancy in the novel who did this exact thing for many years, and it was obvious of aspects of life and what the slave had to do with taking the needs of the white child versus her own child. Jacobs was in a sense employed as a night-nurse to Mrs. Flint 's children rather than her own children at night. This broke Jacobs mentally, physically, and emotionally to where finally Dr. Flint made it clear that it was nearly impossible she could be a mother of any living child of her own. This comes straight from her book and shows an almost perfect example of the respect that would be given to such women, which in reality is absolutely none.

In her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs relates to the readers her experiences as a slave girl in the Southern part of America. Her story started from her sheltered life as a child in her position to her mistress upon her father’s death, and her continuing struggle to leave a mark and upright life despite being a slave. Her struggle involves her constant dishonor from her master; the danger of being sexually used by her mistress’ husband, Dr Flint; her broken relationship with a free colored man; her pregnancy to a man named Mr Sands; and her fight for her and her children’s freedom from slavery. All of these experiences helped Linda learn to fight justly, for her right to become a free individual, but most of all,

Since its institution into American society, slavery played a salient role in the Southern economy as blacks were the backbone of labor and plantation success. Yet, the life of a slave was not the most pleasant and they suffered greatly. Slaves were mistreated and abused by their masters in a way that they were dehumanized and stripped of all rights that should have been morally available. An insight into the life of a salve, particularly of a woman, can be seen in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which gives a first-hand account of the pain and suffering of a girl who more than anything wanted freedom. Jacobs argued that women suffered the most from the inhumane slave system but such argument did not see into the lives of the men who too suffered at the hand of savage masters.

To begin, Harriett Jacobs carefully formulates a narrative that depicts the lives of slave girls and women as it truly was lived. Rather than conform to the readers' tastes and avoid the horrible gruesome details of the lives of female slaves, Jacobs grasps these events and passionately depicts them to her readers in hopes of some form of compassion. She knows her readers are never going to completely understand what women in slavery went through (it would take living it to comprehend) but she feels to protect them from these truths is only greater blurring the understanding of these issues. Jacobs details her life in hopes that her audience will begin to understand the hardships undertaken by innocent black women in the south and no longer sit quietly by and watch. Jacobs states that slavery is far more appalling for women; "they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own" (825). In order to truly touch her intended audience, she brings up topics that all women, free or enslaved, can understand - adultery, family, love. She hopes that by creating a piece that touches the personal lives of women, she will make it difficult for them not to stand in her shoes, even if just for a moment.

Slavery was one of the most horrific ways of life; therefore, slaves went to great lengths to protect themselves and the ones they loved. These slaves took many risks in hopes that one day slavery would be abolished and that African Americans would no longer be treated in such a manner. Harriet Jacobs helps readers visualize the life of slave women by describing how they were sexually harassed, given limited power, and at times, separated from their children. She also managed to resist the force of slavery and her master in ways, such as running away and having a relationship with men other than her master. Jacobs makes a valid argument that women in slavery suffered much more than men.