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. If …show more content…
Jacobs found her new home to be a happy one for “no toilsome or disagreeable duties were imposed upon [her]” (7). Jacobs’s mistress was “so kind to [her] that [she] was always glad to do her bidding, and proud to labor for her” (7). Needless to say, Jacobs and her mistress had a wonderful relationship. They sewed together and Jacobs’s mistress even taught her to read and spell, which was very uncommon and forbidden. When Jacobs was twelve, her mistress sickened, and Jacobs “earnestly prayed in [her] heart that she might live… [She] loved her; for she had been almost like a mother to [her]” (7). Jacobs shares the relationship she had with her mistress in order to show women in the North that not all slaveholders were inhumane. In doing so, Jacobs hopes to get Northern women to take notice of her narrative, read it, and provoke them to want to change the conditions in the South. Unfortunately, people like Jacobs’s mistress were “like angels’ visits-few and far between” (50). Typically, slaves were viewed as “merely a piece of property” (10), and therefore, this ideology reflected how masters and mistresses punished their slaves. Such punishments included “whipping slaves until pools of blood filled their feet, the tearing of flesh by hounds, men screwed into cotton gins to die, and even more alarming, young girls dragged down into moral filth” (74). By the age of fifteen, or what Jacobs referred to as “the sad
At the age of sixteen Jacobs afraid that her mistresses father would eventually end up raping her she started up a relationship with a white neighbor Mr. Sands and ended up having two children with him. The affair that Jacobs had with this man only made her mistresses father even more upset and he sent her away to live on a plantation and endure hard labor and threatened to have her children brought to the plantation and have to work and endure hard labor with her. Jacobs struggled on the plantation and eventually ended up running away. According to Voices of Freedom, “No one knows how many slaves succeeded in escaping from bondage before the civil war. Some who managed to do so settled in Northern cities like Boston, Cincinnati, and New York. But because federal law required that fugitives be returned to slavery, many continued northward until they reached Canada.” (pg.220). When fleeing Jacobs tried to stay away from her mistress and her father and for 7 years she was successful. She lived in a tiny crawl space in her grandmother’s house. She was unable to sit or stand so life for her was very harsh and painful. She was cold in the winters and very hot in the summers and her only means of anything good was a little peep hole
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.
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.
Women were not only used for their labor, but were also exploited sexually. Slave owners felt they had the right to use black women for their own sexual desires, and felt they had the right to use their bodies for slave breeding. This obscenity between the master and slave were not only psychologically damaging for black women, but would also lead to physical abuse. In her narrative, Ms. Jacobs gives us a firsthand description of the abuse that would occur if she were to upset her master, “Some months before, he had pitched me down stairs in a fit of passion; and the injury I received was so serious that I was unable to turn myself in bed for many days”
In the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs argues that her master had an undesirable obsession for her. An obsession she did not want, but could not escape. When Jacobs turned fifteen, life changed drastically; she had gained an unwanted eye of her master. Though her master was afraid to have his inappropriate behaviors and impure thoughts gossiped through town or reported to her grandmother, “he was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purpose” (Jacobs, 52). Despite the fact that Jacobs feared for herself, she felt as if she could not escape her unwanted fate. “My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth the he would compel me to submit to him” (Jacobs, 53). Due to his undying
Harriet A. Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Jacobs’s construction of black female empowerment despite the limitations of slavery
Flint. Instead of bowing to what appears to be the inescapable sexual regression by Flint, Jacobs devises a plan of action that helps her maintain dignity, self-hood, and family unity. Jacobs took on another white man, Sawyer, as a lover because she knew it was inevitable that she would bear a white man’s child. Since Flint denied Jacobs a marriage to a free black man and refused to sell her to anyone, Jacobs knew that she would never be allowed a traditional home and family. By choosing Sawyer as a lover and father to her children, Jacobs went against the ideal image of womanhood and showed independence. Making this choice meant that Jacobs willingly gave up her virginity outside of marriage. An action that is completely against traditional moral codes in her time. Jacobs exhibits the integrity of a survivalists. She thinks and speaks for herself, devises a plan and acts on it, all the while keeping in mind family unity and protection for her children. While attempting to embrace the ideals of womanhood, Jacobs is able to recognize and disregard the standards that cannot be applies and establishes for herself concepts of integrity and self-hood.
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.
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 Jacobs, in her narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was born into slavery in the south. While her youth contained “six years of happy childhood,” a few tragedies and mistresses later, Jacobs spent many years in pain under the possession of her cruel five-year-old mistress, Emily Flint, and Emily’s father, Dr. Flint. Once able to obtain freedom, Jacobs spent most of her life working for the Anti-Slavery office in New York, in hope that one day she could make a difference in the world. “She sought to win the respect and admiration of her readers for the courage with which she forestalled abuse and for the independence with which she chose a lover rather than having one forced on her” (Jacobs 921). Linda Brett, the pseudonym that Jacobs uses to narrate her life story, endures the harsh behavior women slaves were treated with in the south during the nineteenth century. The dominant theme of the corruptive power and psychological abuse of slavery, along with symbolism of good and evil, is demonstrated throughout her narrative to create a story that exposes the terrible captivity woman slaves suffered. The reality of slavery in the past, versus slavery today is used to reveal how the world has changed and grown in the idea of racism and neglect.
Slavery was a challenging and uncomfortable life for the slaves such as Jacobs. Her mistress watched over her when she was sleeping trying to provoke Jacobs into accuse herself of attempting to seduce the mistress’s husband. Slave narratives have gothic elements to it because Jacobs was fearful of her life and her mistress watched over her when Jacobs was variable from being asleep. Jacobs describes how she was in her grandmother’s attic for seven years and
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.
“He told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his…” The treatment of slaves varied in their personal experiences as well as in the experiences of others they knew, but Harriet Jacobs phenomenally described the dynamics of the relationship between many female slaves and their superiors with these words from her personal narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Before slavery was outlawed it was not uncommon for young female slaves to be sexually abused and exploited by their masters. Although many people know about the cruelty of the sexual assaults that made too many young girls victims of rape in the Antebellum South, most people are unaware of the complexity of the issue and how many different ways these women were abused.
In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Harriet Jacobs shares her experience as a slave, from sexual advances from her master to being safe by being trapped in a crawling space intending to evoke an emotional response from Northern free women. Jacobs writes specifically to this group in order to enlighten them on the specific suffering of female slaves, mainly abuse from masters, and gain their sympathy, so they will move to abolish slavery. In order to complete this, Jacobs is compelled to break the conventions of proper female behavior at the time. Harriet Jacobs demonstrates the suffering of female slaves by creating a feminine connection to her female audience with the intention of earning their sympathy, defying the cult of