The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

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.

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”- Nelson Mandela. The quote is describing how freedom is not only being out of chains but to be able to be in society with respect from all. Freedom can also mean a lot of different things depending on the person. For example to a teenager freedom could mean them getting out from under their parents supervision or parental control. But, freedom to an adult that works everyday of the week, their freedom can be, not have to work on the weekends, which gives them their freedom to do anything they want to do. In the slave narrative Incidents of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs about her life as a slave, freedom means Linda (aka Harriet Jacobs) being free from slavery, being away from Dr. Flint, and to have her family free with her. She tries to achieve her freedom in many different ways. She confesses to Mrs. Flint about the advances Dr. Flint makes towards her, she falls in with a free black man, and gets pregnant by Mr. Sands. She uses these to achieve her freedom from Dr. Flint’s advances. She also achieves her freedom by running away to her grandmother’s attic, and running away to the North. Linda also achieves her freedom when Dr. Flint had died and when Mrs. Bruce being her savior.

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.

Injustice is a prevailing theme in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Tubman, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Spider Woman 's Web by Susan Hazen-Hammond and Great Speeches by Native Americans by Bob Blaisdell; the diligence of several characters have made it possible for them to preserve and overcome injustices. America has not always been a land of the free for colored people; white settlers destroyed the meaning of freedom when they robbed the land from the indigenous people. Freedom was also destroyed when slaves in America were not treated as full human beings. Despite of many obstacles the oppressed faced, their thirst for freedom and determination helped them in reaching their goals.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a novel by Harriet Jacobs. It is a story of the true events in Jacobs’ life. Growing up with very little education, she wrote and released her book in the 1850’s. She wrote the book under the pseudonym Lydia Maria Child; it would bring much trouble for her to write in her own name in that time. Remarkably, however, her book is the first full-length narration written by a former female slave. Jacobs’ writing was primarily for white women living in the North. Her white readers should judge slaves differently.

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.

Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl allows Harriet Jacobs, speaking through the narrator, Linda Brent, to reveal her reasons for making public her personal story of enslavement, degradation, and sexual exploitation. Although originally ignored by critics, who often dismissed Jacobs ' story as a fictional account of slavery, today it is reported as the first novel narrative by an ex-slave that reveals the unique brutalities inflicted on enslaved women. Gabby Reyes

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are both prominent influential authors of the Reform Era. Both writers, who spring forth from similar backgrounds and unimaginable situations, place a spotlight on the peculiar circumstances that surrounded the lives of the African American slaves. After reading and analyzing both Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; readers discover the horrifying truths that belong to the past in connection to slavery.

Many slave women were sexually abused against their will by their masters causing them to feel insecure and worthless. The law did not punish a slave owner who sexually abused his slave because they were considered chattel or property. To add to this fact, if a slave woman had a child by her white master, she was prohibited from disclosing who the child’s father was. Jacobs herself was sexually harassed by her slaveowner, Dr. James Norcom also known as Dr. Flint in the autobiography. The abuse began after her mistress died and Jacobs was sold to Flint’s family as the property of his daughter. Flint attempted to take control of every aspect of Jacob’s mind and body. Despite her attempts at evading his abuses, he would still find ways to abuse her and debase her morals.

Incidents in the life of a slave girl, is the authors autobiography of slavery. This book by Harriett Jacobs tells her story through her eyes from the suffering of enslavement by a territorial master, failed attempts to escape, and preservation of her family. These events took place between 1813-1897 in North Carolina, where slaves were property and slave owners did what they wanted; when they wanted with their property. She explains her cruel treatment as an African American slave and how she used her sexuality to her advantage against her master. In reviewing this book, Jacobs failed to go into great detail about her intimate slave-master relationship. She pacified her enslavement, by presenting little to no information about the slaves’ hardships in depth. She was not as descriptive nor did the book highlight the main parts of slavery.

In Incidents, Jacobs changed the name of her new mistress’ father from Dr. James Norcom to “Dr. Flint”. Dr. Flint treated Jacobs unfair; he subjects her to cruel and aggressive sexual harassment. It wasn’t uncommon for plantation owners to sexual harass their female slaves. To them slaves weren’t

With these words, Harriet Jacobs begins her autobiography, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Written under the pseudonym Linda Brent, Jacobs harrowing account details her experiences as a slave in North Carolina, her escape to freedom in the north, and her ensuing struggles to free her children. It is one of the celebrated examples of the genre known as the slave narrative; a written or orally related account of the life of a slave, in the words of said slave. From 1760 to the end of the Civil War, approximately 100 autobiographies of fugitive or former slaves appeared. After slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, at least 50 more former slaves wrote or dictated accounts of their lives (Gates, Introduction). The authors of these narratives typically began by writing about what it was like to be a child in bondage, giving us the first recorded accounts of African American child life. This is not surprising, considering the distinctive youthfulness of the “home-grown” slave population in the South. While other slave societies in the Americas relied upon continuing imports of slaves, most slaves in the antebellum United States were native-born (The Domestic Slave Trade). As a result, over 50% of the slave population in the South was younger than sixteen (Mintz). In this paper, I will explore how these children were represented in slave narratives and what these tales tell us about what life was like for a child born into slavery in the United States during

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.

The freedom to choose one’s own destiny should be an equal and unalienable right of every individual. Unfortunately, history is filled with societal groups as a whole as well as single individuals being prejudicially restricted of this freedom. Notwithstanding these obstacles, there are the individuals who through the triumph of the human spirit persevered to pave the path of freedom. The books Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass, and stories from the anthology Spider Woman’s Web, recount the stories of individuals who succeeded in obtaining their right to human dignity. Their journey to freedom occurred while simultaneously having to fight prejudicial obstacles, laws, and punishments inflicted