Comparing Ruth Hall And Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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Recommended: The portrayal of women in literature

No Happy Woman Ever Writes The domestic sphere was an area of great importance to literature of the 19th century—especially for women writers. As such, aspects of domesticity continued to appear throughout this period in a wide arrange of literature. In Ruth Hall, for instance, the mother struggles with her profession compromising her ability to maintain an atmosphere of domesticity. Similarly, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl covers a slave’s desire for a home and for safety, covering roughly the same sentiment from a wildly different perspective. While their circumstances are dissimilar, both Ruth from Ruth Hall and Linda from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl desire a return to the realms of domesticity that they left behind.
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Flint. Not in the sense that he says it directly, but rather that he always tries to tempt Linda to stay and to submit to him through the promise of a home and a home life (Jacobs 47, 71). This is depicted quite clearly when he asks Linda not to speak to the father of her children. “If you agree to what I am about to propose, you and they shall be free. There must be no communication of any kind between you and their father. I will procure a cottage, where you and the children can live together. Your labor shall be light, such as sewing for my family. Think what is offered you, Linda—a home and freedom” (71). In this piece of dialogue, we see Flint emphasize the connection for Linda between the domestic life and freedom. Linda, herself, seems to combine the two ideas at the end of the novel. “The dream of my life is not yet realized. I do not sit with my children in a home of my own. I still long for a hearthstone of my own, however humble” (164). Here, Linda combines her dream for freedom with her dream for a home for both her and her family. Even though she has a semblance of freedom, her dream is not complete without returning to that feeling of domesticity—that childhood sense of oceanic oneness that she felt so many years

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