John Carbone 3/10/14 EN 102 In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, Jacob’s writing demonstrates to challenge the acceptance of slavery during the 1800’s. Jacobs, who is writing inside a “contact zone” tries to connect both societies in this story. According to Mary Louise Pratt a contact zone is: “Social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today”(Pratt 607). Therefore a contact zone is a mutual space where two completely different cultures collide, and benefit from one another. Harriet Jacobs is writing to an audience of white people so they can understand what being a slave was like. Since Jacobs was an activist during the time of slavery, she attempts to create a visual for the readers of what slavery is and was. Regardless the variances to Pratt’s work, writing within the use of a contact zone, Jacobs display a powerful piece of literature. If Jacobs and Pratt are both accurate in their views of contact zones, then why does it even matter at all what kind of contact zone is being demonstrated in their writings? Understandably Jacobs wasn’t alive when the phrase “contact zone” was even manifested but does incorporating a contact zone into her work change how we read and understand Jacobs? Anywhere on earth, especially in the United Sates, there are different types of communities and cultures that combined to become one; so when you really think about it there are contact zones everywhere. In the mindset that a contact zone even exists in Jacob’s writing, her work could be viewed very differently. It is perhaps, given a... ... middle of paper ... ...y that is revealing an inspiring. In a time when the slavery was such a monumental issue, yet most people from the North and South were poorly knowledgeable. Familiar with the contact zone in which Jacobs wrote about, her work also reveals the idea of overcoming the contact zone through abolishment of slavery. Jacobs, being a slave, had the ability to write about her life and to capture the attention of the audience as to how fragile her life was. Today, it is obvious that slavery was wrong, but at a time when freedom for few wasn’t accepted, this work of encouragement was so critical. For Jacobs had taken the right stance on this very important issue and wrote a very strong auto ethnographic piece in the areas of a contact zone. Even though her work is not accurately accepting towards Pratt’s contact zone, Jacobs work clearly makes a valid argument against slavery.
In her thought-provoking lecture, “The Arts of the Contact Zone,” Mary Louise Pratt stirs the interest of her readers by raising an important argument. She strings together various anecdotes, from crediting historical authors to speaking about her personal experience, to convey her thoughts that contact zones undermine the ideas generated by society that cause one to believe falsities about the community. In addition, contact zones allow people from different backgrounds to acquire new perspectives of the others’ respective cultures, thus dissipating the ignorance they once held. Therefore, by utilizing and crediting her sources, she effectively delivers her argument about the benefits of contact zones to her audience.
In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves at every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery: even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn. The irony exposed in Jacobs’ writings serves to show
In conclusion, the experiences that Jacobs and Douglass had were no different, albeit the forms of their slavery were dissimilar. Abuse is abuse no matter how you slice it the desired effect is to break the spirit of the one being abused. One cannot say that their experience was worse than another because all they have is what they’ve been through. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, then no one but the owner of those eyes can be able to perceive what they have been through and the severity of it. The most important thing to come from what they went through was that it turned these two into great minds of the generation.
Jacobs, Harriet, and Yellin, Jean. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
A recurring theme in, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is Harriet Jacobs's reflections on what slavery meant to her as well as all women in bondage. Continuously, Jacobs expresses her deep hatred of slavery, and all of its implications. She dreads such an institution so much that she sometimes regards death as a better alternative than a life in bondage. For Harriet, slavery was different than many African Americans. She did not spend her life harvesting cotton on a large plantation. She was not flogged and beaten regularly like many slaves. She was not actively kept from illiteracy. Actually, Harriet always was treated relatively well. She performed most of her work inside and was rarely ever punished, at the request of her licentious master. Furthermore, she was taught to read and sew, and to perform other tasks associated with a ?ladies? work. Outwardly, it appeared that Harriet had it pretty good, in light of what many slaves had succumbed to. However, Ironically Harriet believes these fortunes were actually her curse. The fact that she was well kept and light skinned as well as being attractive lead to her victimization as a sexual object. Consequently, Harriet became a prospective concubine for Dr. Norcom. She points out that life under slavery was as bad as any slave could hope for. Harriet talks about her life as slave by saying, ?You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of chattel, entirely subject to the will of another.? (Jacobs p. 55).
Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Print.
...f Jacobs’s narrative is the sexual exploitation that she, as well as many other slave women, had to endure. Her narrative focuses on the domestic issues that faced African-American women, she even states, “Slavery is bad for men, but it is far more terrible for women”. Therefore, gender separated the two narratives, and gave each a distinct view toward slavery.
Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. Ed. Jennifer Fleischner. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010. Print.
With more education the higher the stature a person has, and with more knowledge a person can understand morality and the way the world works. For this education was denied to African-Americans. This kept African Americans inferior to the white men. This is illustrated by Harriet Ann Jacobs when she said in her book, Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl, “It is the ignorance in which white men compel him to live”, with “him” representing African-American men (68). Although it was illegal for slaves to learn how to read and write, some white mistress and children taught slaves anyway. Thus slaves taught other slaves during their secret meetings. Therefore, it is not surprising that Harriet Ann Jacobs was able to write her story in her book. In addition, Harriet lived a horrifying life that is completely unforgettable to her and those like her. This meaning that it is also not surprising how vivid and detailed her work is. African-Americans were not just property; they were human beings, and human beings have the capability to remember tragic events vividly for long periods of
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
Mary Louise Pratt wrote the essay “Arts of the Contact Zone” with the purpose of explaining that society would benefit if people were exposed to and understood the concept of “contact zones”. She refers to contact zones as social spaces where cultures meet and clash with each other, usually with one culture being dominant over the other. A person living in a contact zone is exposed to two different cultures, two different languages, and as a result is presented with a struggle in each culture to maintain themselves. From being surrounded by several different cultures, people begin to integrate the concept of transculturation—a process in which subordinate cultures evolve by taking things from dominant, more advanced cultures, and make it their own. She also calls to attention the error of assuming that people in a community all speak the same language and all share the same motives and beliefs. Pratt insists that education and society must be reformed in such ways that introduce people to the principles of contact zones in order to gain mutual understanding of each other and acquire new wisdom. In order for this mutual understanding to be achieved, the subordinate cultures that exist need to be able to make their voices heard; this leads to the improvement of society as a whole.
In conclusion, women were considered property and slave holders treated them as they pleased. We come to understand that there was no law that gave protection to female slaves. Harriet Jacob’s narrative shows the true face of how slaveholders treated young female slave. The female slaves were sexually exploited which damaged them physically and psychologically. Furthermore it details how the slave holder violated the most sacred commandment of nature by corrupting the self respect and virtue of the female slave. Harriet Jacob writes this narrative not to ask for pity or to be sympathized but rather to show the white people to be aware of how female slaves constantly faced sexual exploitation which damaged their body and soul.
After reading the slavery accounts of Olaudah Equiano 's "The Life of Olaudah Equiano" and Harriet Jacobs ' "Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl", you gain knowledge of what slaves endured during their times of slavery. To build their audience aware of what life of a slave was like, both authors gives their interpretation from two different perspectives and by two different eras of slavery.
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
The Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt opened up a whole new concept for our class. The new term “contact zone” appeared and Pratt defined it as "social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today." The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that trigger much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture.