Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

1051 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The thesis of incidents in the life of a slave girl

The Difficulties Experienced by the Slave Women
In Harriet Jacobs book called; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she describes her life in an enthralling story that clearly reveals how complicated the lives of slaves were before the Civil War. As a result, she portrays the ruthless punishments, privation of food and sufficient clothing, severe labor and wrecked families.
In this book, Harriet Jacobs discloses the cultural binary structures of black and white women. Moreover, she mainly concentrates on the subject of a woman’s sexual history to show that gender conventional images, which make the life of women slaves harsher than slavery for men. Furthermore, she focuses significantly on the dissolution of forced marriages, describing …show more content…

When Linda has turned fifteen years old, she starts to realize the drawbacks of being attractive, because in most cases, appreciation in white woman only increases with the deterioration of the female slave. The main possible reason for such kind of behaviour is jealousy, which misstress mostly feels toward the beauty and youthfulness of a female slave. In her article, she focuses on new cult for a real sisterhood, by revealing a terrible situation of that issue, related to the mistreatment of the individuals of the black race, in the whole community and making the general population informed about this situation not limited to few women.Moreover, darker-skinned slaves worked in the plantation, whereas lighter-skinned slaves worked in a household field. Discrimination still exists today. Often lighter skinned blacks are considered more attractive than darker skinned blacks within their own community.
The third possible effect of race on “sisterhood” is the position of African American people at that period of time. The obstacles to the establishment of the sisterhood were formulated among the different political, economic, and social positions that women of two races took in the development of slavery. The ideology of a genuine femininity was referred to white women, which led to the inequality in the social position of the black and white

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Harriett Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

    1910 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Antebellum Case Study

    946 Words  | 2 Pages

    The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs Incidents And A Slave Girl: An Analysis

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • What Is Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl?

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slavery in the middle of the 19th century was well known by every American in the country, but despite the acknowledgment of slavery the average citizen did not realize the severity of the lifestyle of the slave before slave narratives began to arise. In Incidents in the life of a slave girl, Harriet Jacobs uses an explicit tone to argue the general life of slave compared to a free person, as well as the hardships one endured on one’s path to freedom. Jacobs fought hard in order to expand the abolitionist movement with her narrative. She was able to draw in the readers by elements of slave culture that helped the slaves endure the hardships like religion and leisure and the middle class ideals of the women being “submissive, past, domestic,

    Read More

  • The Use Of Slavery In Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl?

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Slavery and the Life of Harriet Jacobs

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is well known that slavery was a horrible event in the history of the United States. However, what isn't as well known is the actual severity of slavery. The experiences of slave women presented by Angela Davis and the theories of black women presented by Patricia Hill Collins are evident in the life of Harriet Jacobs and show the severity of slavery for black women.

    Read More

  • Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman?

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of In Ar 'N' T I A Woman By Deborah Gray White

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    Deborah White configures the preeminent perception that Southern white women had of colored slave women. The initial impression was that all black women slaves were sexual deviants that were not fully equipped to fulfill their roles as slaves as they imposed a sort of “dangerous” sexual pressure in the community. The following vison of the common slave woman was that of a motherly nature in the way that the women were subject to have children for the sole purpose of renewing the source for slaves. No matter the outlook, it is clear that the slave women of the south were being forced to be flexible with their roles in order to please the slave

    Read More

  • Slavery Injustice Male versus Female

    1079 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet A.. Incidents in the life of a slave girl. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988

    Read More

  • Motherhood in Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    1205 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Rachel And Harriet Jacobs Summary

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Line of Color, Sex, and Service: Sexual Coercion in the Early Republic” is a publication that discusses two women, Rachel Davis and Harriet Jacobs. This story explains the lives of both Rachel and Harriet and their relationship between their masters. Rachel, a young white girl around the age of fourteen was an indentured servant who belonged to William and Becky Cress. Harriet, on the other hand, was born an enslaved African American and became the slave of James and Mary Norcom. This publication gives various accounts of their masters mistreating them and how it was dealt with.

    Read More

  • Gender Slavery And Freedom Essay

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the eighteenth and nineteenth-century, notions of freedom for Black slaves and White women were distinctively different than they are now. Slavery was a form of exploitation of black slaves, whom through enslavement, lost their humanity and freedom, and were subjected to dehumanizing conditions. African women and men were often mistreated through similar ways, especially when induced to labor, they would eventually become a genderless individual in the sight of the master. Despite being considered “genderless” for labor, female slaves suddenly became women who endured sexual violence. Although a white woman was superior to the slaves, she had little power over the household, and was restricted to perform additional actions without the consent of their husbands. The enslaved women’s notion to conceive freedom was different, yet similar to the way enslaved men and white women conceived freedom. Black women during slavery fought to resist oppression in order to gain their freedom by running away, rebel against the slaveholders, or by slowing down work. Although that didn’t guarantee them absolute freedom from slavery, it helped them preserve the autonomy and a bare minimum of their human rights that otherwise, would’ve been taken away from them. Black

    Read More

  • The Trial Of Girlhood And A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl's Life Analysis

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Open Document