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Harriet jacobs the life of a female slave
Harriet jacobs recounts sexual dangers for enslaved girls and women brief summary
Motherhood and family passage in the life of a slave girl
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“The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear”. Harriet Jacobs says this because she was subjected to unspeakable horrors and abuse from the time she was a young girl until the time she reached womanhood. Fear ruled her life; she was a slave to both her master and the ideology that she would never be more than a slave. Her fear was crippling, but luckily there was a remedy to this fear. Her children gave her the strength to break free from both the physical and mental slavery she endured at the hands of Dr. Flint. She longed to give them a home to call their own, and to provide a future for them that did not include any notion of slavery. This longing displayed Harriet’s desire for the maternal responsibilities that were normally expected of white women at this time. The ideology of domesticity was cleverly found within the pages of Harriet’s narrative to appeal to the young white women of America. Domesticity in this narrative can be seen as 1.) A paradise in regards to her longing for a home to call her own, and 2.), A prison for Harriet when she is isolated in Martha’s secret room just inches from her unsuspecting children. These divergent views of domesticity set the stage for abolition and antislavery acts because white women came to desire what the female slaves had in regards to the responsibilities of the home. The …show more content…
In the “Happiest Laboring Class”, the first slaveholder explains that a slave should be obedient at all times under all circumstances. Harriet displays this submissive attitude to both Mr. Flint and even her Aunt Martha. This inferior attitude holds her back from attaining her end goal, which is to have her own home with her children. Eventually she breaks free from this attitude when she runs away from Mr. Flint, and leaves her Aunt Martha to make it on her way to personal
In the autobiographical writings Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs’ reflects on the times that her master Dr. Flint consistently tried to molest her sexually. In spite of her fears of horrible repercussions such as beatings or torture if she refuses to submit to him, Harriet always manages to evade his proposals to become his mistress by out-smarting him. She defends herself from his numerous attempts to seduce her, by the power of her mental strength and intelligence, and her Christian morality. While she fears him each time he secretly approaches her with his sexual propositions when he caught her alone, she could always think of ways to protect herself. For example she protects herself from the dangers of his sexual advances by removing herself from the master’s presence any opportunity she gets. She sometimes stays with her grandmother or aunt at night to protect herself from him. They are both Dr. Flint’s former slaves too who live on the plantation where she lives. Even though he threatens to kill her if she tells anyone, she tells his wife about his sexual advances, and Mrs. Flint invites Harriet to sl...
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 the earliest part of Harriet?s life the whole idea of slavery was foreign to her. As all little girls she was born with a mind that only told her place in the world was that of a little girl. She had no capacity to understand the hardships that she inherited. She explains how her, ?heart was as free from care as that of any free-born white child.?(Jacobs p. 7) She explains this blissful ignorance by not understanding that she was condemned at birth to a life of the worst kind oppression. Even at six when she first became familiar with the realization that people regarded her as a slave, Harriet could not conceptualize the weight of what this meant. She say?s that her circumstances as slave girl were unusua...
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl opens with an introduction in which the author, Harriet Jacobs, states her reasons for writing an autobiography. Her story is painful, and she would rather have kept it private, but she feels that making it public may help the antislavery movement. A preface by abolitionist Lydia Maria Child makes a similar case for the book and states that the events it records are true.
Linda Brent, Ms. Jacobs' pseudonym while writing "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," became so entrenched in hatred of slaveholders and slavery that she lost sight of the possible good actions of slaveholders. When she "resolved never to be conquered" (p.17), she could no longer see any positive motivations or overtures made by slaveholders. Specifically, she could not see the good side of Mr. Flint, the father of her mistress. He showed his care for her in many ways, most notably in that he never allowed anyone to physically hurt her, he built a house for her, and he offered to take care of her and her bastard child even though it was not his.
Harriet was never considered a good slave. After her head injury, a neighbor wanted to hire her as a nurse-girl, and her owner was more than willing to let her go. (Taylor 8). Harriet was required to “do all the housework, milk the cows, as well as to be at the side of the cradle every time the little darling cried.” (Taylor 8). Because she wasn't able to be at all places at all times, she was beaten and sent back to her owner with the recommendation, “She don’t worth the salt that seasons her grub.” (Taylor 8). Once Harriet was returned, her owner greeted her with “I will break you in!” (Taylor 8). “From early morn till late at night she was made to work, beaten and cuffed upon the slightest provocation.” (Taylor 8).
In her essay, “Loopholes of Resistance,” Michelle Burnham argues that “Aunt Marthy’s garret does not offer a retreat from the oppressive conditions of slavery – as, one might argue, the communal life in Aunt Marthy’s house does – so much as it enacts a repetition of them…[Thus] Harriet Jacobs escapes reigning discourses in structures only in the very process of affirming them” (289). In order to support this, one must first agree that Aunt Marthy’s house provides a retreat from slavery. I do not. Burnham seems to view the life inside Aunt Marthy’s house as one outside of and apart from slavery where family structure can exist, the mind can find some rest, comfort can be given, and a sense of peace and humanity can be achieved. In contrast, Burnham views the garret as a physical embodiment of the horrors of slavery, a place where family can only dream about being together, the mind is subjected to psychological warfare, comfort is non-existent, and only the fear and apprehension of inhumanity can be found. It is true that Aunt Marthy’s house paints and entirely different, much less severe, picture of slavery than that of the garret, but still, it is a picture of slavery differing only in that it temporarily masks the harsh realities of slavery whereas the garret openly portrays them. The garret’s close proximity to the house is symbolic of the ever-lurking presence of slavery and its power to break down and destroy families and lives until there is nothing left. Throughout her novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs presents these and several other structures that suggest a possible retreat from slavery, may appear from the outside to provide such a retreat, but ideally never can. Among these structures are religion, literacy, family, self, and freedom.
No one in today’s society can even come close to the heartache, torment, anguish, and complete misery suffered by women in slavery. Many women endured this agony their entire lives, there only joy being there children and families, who were torn away from them and sold, never to be seen or heard from again.
The life of a slave was tedious and full of pain, many of them hoped for death to come and take them away. They were constantly being whipped, locked up in jail, starved; and unfortunately the young beautiful girls, abused by their masters. When Linda and Benjamin (her brother) were taken to their new owner’s home, Benjamin said that they “[were] dogs [there]; foot balls, cattle, everything that is mean.” Their old mistress would take such good care of them, that when they stepped into the Flints home, they immediately felt how cold this family was towards their slaves. Harriet states that “No pen can give an adequate description...
As her narrative begins, she explains to the reader that she was ignorant of being a slave, until she figured out she was enslaved at age six. She thought that she was living a “normal” life and that things were just the way they were. Jacobs writes, “I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them for safe keeping, and liable to be demanded of at any moment.” (911). Looking back at her experience and now writing about it, Jacobs has the power to call herself a free woman. The idea of being free was a goal that took many hardships to acquire so when writing about her captivity, she too recognizes that captivity has made a stronger woman. By comparing Frederick Douglas’ and Harriet Jacobs’ captivity, Jennie Miller concludes, “Both experienced painful discontent as they pondered their own condition in bondage, which, in turn, fueled each writer’s determination to obtain their freedom.” (32). Without being captive, Jacobs would have never gained strength from her determination to be free. Although she escaped from her master, Jacobs only way to survive before her escape was to go into hiding for almost seven years. She writes, “It has been painful to me, in many ways, to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could.” (931). The fact that her
Harriet had the gift of explaining difficult ideas. She wanted people specifically the working class to be aware of their situation, to gain consciousness, by educating them through her writings, as explained through this quote, “The other method by which I propose to lessen my own responsibility, is to enable my readers to judge for themselves, better than I can for them, what my testimony is worth. For this purpose I offer a brief account of my travels…” (Martineau 53). Martineau describes the inequality she witnesses here in the United States, going on to write about how women in slavery. She recounts a meeting with a white woman who sold a black woman for 1,500 dollars, Martineau was the first to focus attention on issues relevant to Americans in my
They were not capable of surviving on their own without white guidance (Boston). Dr. Flint, the master over the plantation where Harriet Jacobs lived showed a great example of paternalism. He cared for Harriet but in a possessive way to which he continuously sought the woman for his personal needs. For Dr. Flint, the slaves he owned should be grateful towards him and be willing to do what he asked with no rebuttal. This wasn’t the case with Harriet.
Analyzing the narrative of Harriet Jacobs in the context of the writings of W.E.B. Du bois serves to demonstrate how slavery prompted the weary and self-denigrating attitudes of Negro Americans during the subsequent Reconstruction period. However, it is important to note that Harriet Jacobs does not embody the concept of double-consciousness because slavery effectively stripped away her sexuality and femininity, therefore reducing her to one identity--that of a
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.
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