The slave narrative The History of Mary Prince, harsh treatment and brutal

Slavery is a condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they work and live. Slavery has been around since the 1600’s. Jacobs a young female who recounts her life in the book “Incident’s in the life of a slave girl”, gives us an in depth look into her life and how she overcame slavery and gained herself the title of freedom. Now life was not easy for Jacobs. She struggled for much of her life and the kids she had out of wedlock had to suffer because she was a slave. Slavery is not a status that anyone wants to have especially if you are a woman and a slave.

She emphasizes that the life of a slave woman is incomparable to the life of a slave man, in the sense that a woman’s sufferings are not only physical but also extremely mental and emotional. Whether or not a slave woman is beaten, starved to death, or made to work in unbearable circumstances on the fields, she suffers from and endures horrible mental torments. Unlike slave men, these women have to deal with sexual harassment from white men, most often their slave owners, as well as the loss of their children in some cases. Men often dwell on their sufferings of bodily pain and physical endurance as slaves, where as women not only deal with that but also the mental and emotional aspect of it. Men claim that their manhood and masculinity are stripped from them, but women deal with their loss of dignity and morality. Females deal with the emotional agony as mothers who lose their children or have to watch them get beaten, as well as being sexually victimized by white men who may or may not be the father of their children. For these women, their experiences seem unimaginable and are just as difficult as any physical punishment, if not more so.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a slave narrative written by Harriet Ann Jacobs is highly commended for the portrayal of women during the excruciating times of slavery. Disregarding that the slave narrative was initially written for the audience of Caucasian women, “…, as white women constituted Jacobs’s primary audience at the time she wrote her narrative” (Larson,742) the struggles of being a female slave were emphasized throughout the narrative. Harriet Ann Jacobs elaborates on slave women’s worth being diminished. In the slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, the theme of the perils of slavery for women was portrayed by women being viewed

When slavery was present in the United States, life was very hard for many slaves. They would spend their days working in the fields or in the home, doing whatever their master called upon. Slaveholders also held the power over their slaves treating them however they pleased. Most slaveholders were cruel which led to the slaves to do anything they could to avoid their master’s treatment and hope for a better life in the North. The North was filled with freedom, hope, desire and equality for people. It sounded like paradise to most slaves which was the proper motivation they needed to escape from their masters. Many slaves had goals of making in up North

In the story about Mary Prince, she had several owners. Mrs. Williams one of Mary Prince’s first owners was described as kind-hearted good women, who treated all her slaves well (Prince 7). Mr. Williams was described as an abusive husband, I think this may be the reason why she treated her slaves with so much kindness. Mary Prince had another owner by the name of Mr.D. Mr.D lived in Grand Quay, a small town, where he had owned a salt pound (Prince 19). Mr. D received profits for having slaves work in his salt pound. When he would beat Mary or order her to be punished she would describe him as being emotionless (Prince 20). The fact that Mr.D was running a business lead me to believe he could not show any weakness towards the slaves. This type of mentality would perhaps make the slaves fear him greater than the typical slave owner and raise the level of productivity of the slaves in fear of being beaten with no remorse. Even though this seems inhuman, it was also Mr.D’s livelihood to ensure the slaves were continuing to work

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.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.

Mary Prince was a slave in the West Indies in the early 1800s. In her book, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, she talks about her life as a slave, and the treatment she received from the different families she lived with. This paper focuses on the cruel treatment of Mary by her slave owners, specifically the Inghams, Mr. D- and his wife, and the Woods.

While in this horrible life that slaves lived in many would recorded their encounters on how it was being a slave. In the book The Classic Slave Narratives you read how slaves are brutally beaten occasionally by their master or overseer. In the story of Mary Prince and Frederick Douglas you see all the heart ache that these slaves had to go through. There is similarity in which all slaves stories are the same but different in their own way. When learning about slavery we already know about all the bad things they went through but its all different when you actually hear it from their point of few. Which is really horrifying to learn the truth of what these slaves had to face.

Harriet Jacobs’ work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a powerful piece. In the slave narrative, she is battling to become a freed person which makes it didactic because Jacobs wants slavery to end. There is elements of gothic writings because it was something that truly happens.

The History of Mary Prince presents speech as a vehicle to freedom for the enslaved. With every description narrator Mary shares with the reader and speaks to her oppressors, she is becoming more free. This is illustrated via a gradual transformation away from the gentle means of discussing her masters, to a very harsh and critical way of exposing their mistreatment of her. Furthermore, her use of defiant speech in her narrative humanizes her and shows that beneath the cloak of slavery lies a human being with a voice. The dual purpose of voice, with Mary as a character speaking against her masters and Mary as a writer speaking against supporters of slavery.

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.

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

Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.