Review Of ' About A Slave Girl ' By Linda Brent

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, depicts the story of Harriet Jacobs and her journey through a horrific life of slavery. She chooses to tell her story through the eyes of a character named Linda Brent. Harriet tells her life story nearly from start to finish, opening with the depiction of her life as a very young girl born into slavery. Continuing into her young adult years, and ultimately ending with hope for a future free from slavery in her later years. The experiences Linda faces are unimaginable and heartbreaking. As the readers, we not only get to see the culture of the time period that came with Linda 's life, but we also witness what Linda learns about herself though this story. These realizations provide reflection on the

The life of a slave woman is far more complex than that of a slave man, although understandably equal in hardships, the experience for a woman is incredibly different. The oppression that women have faced throughout their lives in the struggle to even be considered equal to men is more than evident in slavery, not only because they were thought of as lesser but in some ways many women actually believed it to be true. The experiences that Linda Brent, pseudonym for the author Harriet A. Jacobs, went through in her life story in Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl prove that the difficulties for slave women were more than significant in many different cases. For Linda Brent, her life had been a constant fight since she was six years old

He eventually cracked and gave up valuable information on the whereabouts of Celia, and she was later captured. Celia was provided with a lawyer, which was another important situation. A young hot shot with aspirations of protecting her, this was a perfect lawyer for Celia. However, she was

When Linda was a child, she was not treated like a normal slave. This was due to the help of a grandmother, who was once a slave but earned so much respect and was loved by her master and mistress that she

Harriet Jacobs wrote, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” using the pseudonym Linda Brent, and is among the most well-read female slave narratives in American history. Jacobs faces challenges as both a slave and as a mother. She was exposed to discrimination in numerous fronts including race, gender, and intelligence. Jacobs also appeals to the audience about the sexual harassment and abuse she encountered as well as her escape. Her story also presents the effectiveness of her spirit through fighting racism and showing the importance of women in the community.

Autobiographical narrative that has been written by african-american female from North Carolina by the name Harriet A Jacob, who depicts horrors of normal life of a slave, beginning her story with description of her childhood memories of her family and people who were their owners. Harriet adopts a pseudonym of Linda Brent, and assigns different from reality names to anyone important in her narrative, in order to be able to share the story of her life and probably save important to the author people since the time of publication meant, certain investigations or unwanted interest from the opposing side of the civil war. In the preface of the narrative, the author, importantly explains significance of her ability to share her story to the people of free states, in order for them to decide their future, but more interestingly she was able to set up a tone with a beginning quote, a tone of understanding the reality of the situation as a whole, a certain type of disrespect to the authorities who execute what is needed in order for the system of slavery to function. Since she begins with description of her family starting with her father who seems to be caring and responsible person, even trying to buy freedom for his children. The story of her grandmother is tragic as well, but through it we can judge the importance of family ties that Harriet was able to absorb from her relatives, especially her opportunity to live among her grandmother and

The autobiography , Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl, was written by Harriet Ann Jacobs under the pseudonym name Linda Brendt. This book details the life of slavery and how Jacobs’ achieved freedom for her children and for herself. Jacobs’ detailed these painful, and intricate accounts through forty-one chapters. Harriet Jacobs unfortunate experiences as a slave were significantly shaped because of her gender. Jacobs did indeed endure struggles through her race, but her gender is of great significance during her time as a slave. Jacobs used herself as an example to show how enslaved women were manipulated by their masters, the difficulties of being a mother during slavery mother, and how the fight for freedom were all impacted by her gender.

In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the motives and goals of Linda Brent affected her self-image and her relationships with those around her. There were three important scenes in this selection that exemplified her motives and goals. One of these scenes was when she deteriorated her health in a crawl space in order for her to escape her wretched life. Linda feared that Dr. Flint would send her children to the plantations, because Mrs. Flint did not want her to leave the plantation. Mrs. Flint believed if she brought Linda’s children to the plantation Linda would never leave, and they would all be forced to engage in slavery for good. Linda could not bear the thought of her children being forced into such cruelty, therefore she created a plan that included her running away. She ended up in a crawl space attached to her grandmother’s house. That space allowed for little to no room, no warmth in the winter, no cool air in the summer, and no interaction with anyone, except for the grandmother at night. Her motive for living this way was her children. Her goals being to be with her kids and be free of Dr. Flint, and slavery. She wanted to be able to leave her crawl space, flee to the North, and be reunited with her children. She was granted such success and found companions with the Bruce family. “Linda . . . escaped to the North . . . was reunited with her children . . . and found work in the Bruce household” (2361, Note). Another scene is when she

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.

Harriet Jacobs was born a slave herself in Edenton, North Carolina and was one of the first women to write a slave narrative in the United States of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). It was to address the white women of the North and thousands of “Slave mothers that are still in bondage in the South” (Jacobs 126). Jacobs tells her life of twenty-seven years in slavery in-depth life as a slave, and the choices she made to gain freedom for herself and her children. She writes a story about her families ' and masks them as well as her name as “Linda Brent” in her novel to protect herself in a sense as well as some of the important places in town. Harriet shows in her story the fights and sexual abuse that she faced as a slave on

In her poignant autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs offers the audience to experience slavery through a feminist perspective. Unlike neo-slave narratives, Jacobs uses the pseudonym ‘Linda Brent’ to narrate her first-person account in order to keep her identity clandestine. Located in the Southern part of America, her incidents commence from her sheltered life as a child to her subordination to her mistress upon her mother’s death, and her continuing struggle to live a dignified and virtuous life despite being enslaved. Using an unconventional chronological structure (interrupting the narrative to address social, political, or historical commentary) Jacobs centralizes few arguments such as the economics of slavery, hegemony, pain (physical & emotional) and the quest for freedom. However, she admonishes the reader not to be empathetic for her for “…it is not to awaken sympathy for myself [to which] I am telling you truthfully what I suffered. I do it to kindle a flame of compassion in your hearts for my sisters who are still in bondage” (Jacobs, 28).

Brutal beatings, sexual assault, and ripped apart families are just few of the gruesome misfortunes slaves suffered through during the segregated nineteenth century. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by fugitive slave, Harriet Jacobs, exposes the truth about barbaric conditions of enslavement, especially for women. Jacobs wrote under the pseudonym “Linda Brent” to ensure she could write a purely honest account of her life story. Throughout the book, she displays the merciless physical hardships of slavery while also illustrating the extreme emotional and psychological torment. Because slavery was such an explosive issue in America at the time, Jacobs aimed to bring the harsh oppression to light, highlighting how gender affects the life

Both novels show examples of this theory. In Linda Brent's, Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl, Linda Brent writes, "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women," (64). By living in seclusion for seven years, Brent realized her ultimate dream was to live a traditional family life which in the conclusion of the novel she does. Due to being an African-American slave, Brent was thwarted from obtaining her goals for an extended period of time. Brent, though a woman was thwarted from enjoying her family life because she was a black woman living in bondage. If Brent had been born a white woman she would never had suffered the turmoil of separation from her children.

In the book, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, Linda Brent tells a spectacular story of her twenty years spent in slavery with her master Dr. Flint, and her jealous Mistress. She speaks of her trials and triumphs as well as the harms done to other slaves. She takes you on the inside of slavery and shows you the Hell on Earth slavery really was. She tells you the love and

Jacobs autobiography which is known by the name of ‘Incidents in a Life of a Slave Girl’ gave a true account of the treatment that black women faced during that time and also throwing some light on a perception which has been kept in shadows from the society. While writing the story of her life, Jacobs though focused on her defeat due to obstacles like race and gender, gave voice to something which was hidden from society regardless of the presence of patriarchal society of the nineteenth century.