Humanities Explication Essay Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl offers a uniquely approachable form of the antebellum slave narrative. While many slave narratives appeal to abolitionists or those looking for entertainment, this narrative broadens the appeal to people who did not believe as strongly in equality for African Americans or who were more conservative. Jacobs makes the antebellum slave narrative accessible to white people by showing sympathy and understanding for slaveholders struggles and motives and by showing care for their emotions and opinion. Jacobs makes the slave narrative less threatening by expressing personal interest in the emotions and opinions of her white and slaveholder audience. Linda’s sympathy …show more content…
for white individuals come across in many parts of her narrative; changing the traditional emphasis. In regards to Linda’s relations with the Flints, Jacobs writes, “[Ms. Flint] spoke in tones so sad, that I was touched by her grief … but I was soon convinced that her emotions arose from anger and wounded pride.
She felt that her marriage vows were desecrated, her dignity insulted; but she had no compassion for the poor victim of her husband’s perfidy” (Jacobs 31). Through explaining that her mistress’ emotions are arising from “anger and wounded pride”, Linda shows understanding of her mistress’ lack of compassion. Linda shows sympathy for both her own feelings and those of her white and slaveholding audience, allowing Jacobs book to connect with the white majority. Later in the narrative, Linda speaks further to the struggles of white women. She asserts, “The young wife soon learns that the husband in whose hands she has placed her happiness pays no regard to his marriage vows. Children of every shade of complexion play with her own fair babies, and too well she knows that they are born unto him of his own household. Jealousy and hatred enter the flowery home, and it is ravaged of its loveliness” (Jacobs 33). Linda sympathizes with the burdens of slaveholder’s wives due to slavery itself by discussing how the how …show more content…
the purity of slaveholders’ wives’ homes is ruined by their husbands’ infidelity, By writing about the pain that this infidelity causes for white women, Linda addresses the rape of African American women from an entirely different perspective.
This directly appeals to white slaveholder’s wives experiences and creates a more relatable and therefore, compelling narrative. Later in the book, while discussing the cruelties that she has witnessed, Linda reminds the reader, “I could tell of more slaveholders as cruel as those I have described. They are not exceptions to the general rule. I do not say there are not humane slaveholders” (Jacobs 44). While standing strong on her point that these brutal acts are a regular occurrence, Jacobs includes descriptions of ‘humane slaveholders’. While staying true to the experiences of a slave, Jacobs offers the white reader an opportunity to feel unattacked. Linda further sympathizes with a white audience when she states “slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched” (Jacobs 46). Linda displays care for negative behaviors that white people
display and experience and emphasizes that these are due to slavery. Through showing a new level of understanding for the motives behind behaviors that white people exhibit, Linda gives white readers a chance to reflect without feeling directly attacked. Jacobs tailors her book to a broader audience by showing Linda’s care for her white mistress and writing with slaveholders and conservative white people’s experiences and struggles in mind. Through this technique, Jacobs honors the various perspectives of her readers in order to broaden the accessibility of the antebellum slave narrative. By offering a perspective on the struggles of both white and African American individuals, Jacobs’ narrative offers a unique opportunity to slaveholders and conservative white people that would otherwise feel attacked in a narrative of this nature. This broadened the book’s audience and held the potential to start conversations within communities of people that were not already abolitionist or focused on racial equality.
In Harriett Jacobs’s book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she informs her readers of her life as a slave girl growing up in southern America. By doing this she hides her identity and is referred to as Linda Brent which she had a motive for her secrecy? In the beginning of her life she is sheltered as a child by her loving mistress where she lived a free blissful life. However after her mistress dies she is not freed from the bondage of slaver but given to her mistress sister and this is where Jacobs’s happiness dissolved. In her story, she reveals that slavery is terrible for men but, is more so dreadful for women. In addition woman bore being raped by their masters, as well as their children begin sold into slavery. All of this experience
Harriet Jacobs and Fanny Fern both display different kinds of writing styles that shed light on women who could stand up on their own. The stories of those two women vastly contrast each other, however, the women display hardships and overcome their difficulties in a similar manner. Jacobs who goes by a different persona-- a woman’s name Linda, who is a young slave. Fern did a similar thing to Jacobs by going by a different persona, a young woman named Ruth Hall. What the two women display with their books released to the public is to give another look at what women go through. The readers of the book would explore the hardship of what the two women have experienced, thus bringing more awareness and light to women’s rights and the anti-slavery
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
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).
However, identical to Linda’s grandmother, her children served as a disincentive from securing her own immunity from slavery for years. When Linda’s daughter, Ellen was born, that was the stage in Linda’s life that she committed herself to gaining freedom, not only for herself, but also Benny and Ellen. Linda states, “When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”(pg 66) This instance, carries two perks, although it is a burden for Linda to have birthed children as a slave. The first of the two perks represents itself in the moment where Linda comprehends the possible outcomes for her newly born daughter. Linda understands that she has brought someone into this world that will go under the same conditions that she had been living in. Due to this thought process, Linda develops a new determination to strive for freedom. Apart from her newfound determination, Linda also gains immunity from Dr. Flint’s physical violence. Amidst the benefits gained through Linda’s children, further in the future, her tether with them restrained her. As Linda secretly watches her children, from her grandmother’s attic, she experiences harsh living conditions. Linda recounts her living conditions in her grandmother’s attic by conveying, “But for weeks I was tormented by
The setting of the narrative Incidents is vaguely described but we get the notion that Linda’s family exists in a state where even though they are enslaved, they have some kind of freedom. The setting thus tries to remind us that there are many different kinds of slavery. However upon arriving in England, Linda disperses the widely spread idea that American slaves were better off than the poor people in other countries. She says: “I repeat that the most ignorant and the most destitute of these peasants was a thousand fold better off than the most pampered American slave” (37) In some ways we can say that Linda was a pampered slave – she was able to live with her family and she was never raped or whipped (which was not the case in Douglass...
Despite Flint’s overtures, Linda is able to avoid being by the grace of her own intellect. Although her actions may seem illicit and ill-advised, like her love affair with Mr. Sands to fend off Dr. Flint, so are the repercussions if she cooperates and does nothing. Jacobs predicates that slaves suffer from the influence of the slave system on their moral development. In the text, it is evident that Linda does not condemn slaves for illegal or immoral acts such as theft or adultery, but rather saying that they usually have no other option but to behave this way. However, she also points out that slaves have no reason to develop a strong ethical sense, as they are given no ownership of themselves or final control over their actions. This is not their fault, but the fault of the slavery system that dehumanizes them. “Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! 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 a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another” (Jacobs 49). Slaves are not evil like their masters, but important parts of their personalities are left undeveloped. She argues that a powerless slave girl cannot be held to the same standards of morality as a free
This dual interest explains how slavery was particularly terrible for slave women than for slave men. While slave women’s lives were “dictated by their masters’ economic stake in labor,” they were kept as breeders, supplying more labor to the domestic slave trade and sustaining the system that oppressed them (Roberts, 1998: 22-24). Furthermore, slave masters’ dual interest interfered with slave women’s ability to experience motherhood the same way free women experienced motherhood. Slave women’s children weren’t their own. Slave parents had no legal claim to their children. Linda’s grandmother had to buy the freedom of her children from their masters, and could raise Benny and Ellen only because Mr. Sands bought them from Dr. Flint. In a similar fashion, slaves’ surnames were typically their master’s surnames, not their parents’ surnames. (Although it is true that many slave masters fathered slave children.) Unlike free women, slave women had no authority over their children. Many parents and children were physically separated after the slave masters sold the children. Even in instances where mothers and children were kept together, slave masters had complete control of the children. As soon as they were of old enough, they were put to work and vulnerable to the same harsh conditions that their mothers faced. Slave women, more than free women, experienced the woes of losing children. Infant mortality was exceedingly high in slave populations because of the harsh conditions that the mother experienced during pregnancy (Roberts, 1998: 14). The slave women’s personal well-being often conflicted with their role as mothers. Additionally, a slave woman’s children were usually weaknesses that the slave owners would exploit. “[C]hildren tied mothers to their masters,” prevented them from running away, lured escaped women back to the slave owners, or pushed women into greater submission
In The Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs wrote in her preface, “Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction” (Preface). Jacob’s narrative was unlike no other narrative; not because her story explained the opportunity of escaping the shackles of slavery, but how a female was a major trope. Jacobs writes her experience in slavery to not only let people know the dangers and mistreatment, but to encourage white women abolitionists to stand up for African American women and women in general. Jacobs’s narrative displayed the relationship between mother and child, the balance of reading and writing, and the evils of white men. Harriet Jacobs truly describes a slave narrative through personal voice, through adventure, and through sympathy.
The Reflection of Harriet Jacobs and the Documentary “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a book by Harriet Jacob, and it is a book filled with many emotions from the author where she narrates her story using a fictional name. Its story revolves around the main character which is Linda Brent. As we read, we see the experiences she had to undergo as slave. From being threatened because she denied to have sexual relationships to hearing a slave being whipped, all of this things made Linda turn into the person she would ultimately become. Experiences like Linda’s are important to remember because they play a very important role in United States History in which slave masters treated their slaves like mere objects for their own personal use. In Linda Brent’s case, everything she underwent was
Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was determined to fight to the death for her freedom. Harriet Ann Jacobs was an astonishing slave woman whom over came many great obstacles in life. Harriet wrote an autobiography about her life called Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, under the pseudo name of Linda Brent. Her story talks about her struggles and achievements as a slave. Harriet used different names in the story to hind the identity of her fellow slaves and her masters.Yet while Douglass could show “how a slave became a man” in a physical fight with an overseer, Jacobs’s gender determined a different course. Pregnant with the child of a white lover of her own choosing, fifteen year old Jacobs reasoned (erroneously) that her condition would
As a reflection of the culture from which it springs, art has served the purpose throughout history of both responding to current events and pervading memes and of providing a generative force through which those elements may perpetuate and, in some cases, resolve themselves. Various genres have evolved as necessary to frame and comment on society at given points throughout history, establishing a powerful artistic repertoire. The Slave Narrative is a prime example of this phenomenon, having arisen out of the collective need for a people to respond to their situation in a manner that the surrounding society would not only allow, but embrace for its ambition, vision, and enlightening nature. Through it, the world was opened up to firsthand
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.