Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacob

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

owed to the fact that people had a negative view on her color and gender and this made her prone to things like discrimination due to race and gender, being treated as an object, and experiencing being treated as inferior due to ignorance. To say she suffered more from physical brutality than psychological brutality would be essentially wrong because Linda went through a lot of mental torture.
When talking about discrimination due to race and gender , Linda Bert uses a perfect example in one of the chapters in which she describes how being born beautiful is a double sided weapon because beautiful slaves were more likely to become victims of the cruel practice. In other words, she was emphasizing how slavery made beauty seem insignificant because in the end, all of the women were destined to go through the same road, “If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave” (31). Mrs. Jacob explains to us how child slaves will eventually grow up to become adults. She emphasizes how the child will eventually learn why her mistress hates the slaves, the child will not be able to understand the violent outbreaks that slaves suffered, and sooner than later she will prematurely understand all of these “evil things”. In another instance Linda is overwhelmed by the idea that her children will be tormented by the same discrimination that always tormented her. Saddest of all, she preferred for her children to die instead of living, “horrid visions passed through my mind when I thought of his liability to fall into slave trader’s hands… I wept over him, and said, “O my child! Perhaps they will leave you in some cold cabin to die, and then throw you into a hole, as if you were a dog”’ (85). When she was free Linda was still getting used to the life of the Free States, and in one occasion while she was sleeping, beeping bells woke her up. Immediately, she woke up and got dressed because for slaves it meant that it was time for labor. However, this was not the case in the Free states. Her enthusiasm about freedom was severely damaged when she got her ticket to ride the cars, “they don’t allow colored people to go in the first class cars… This was the first chill to my enthusiasm about the Free States. Colored people were allowed to ride in a filthy box, behind the white people, at the south, but there they were not required to pay for the privilege. It made me sad to find how the north aped the customs of slavery” (183). After her experience Mrs. Jacob realized that discrimination and prejudice are everywhere, and in a place where she was supposed to be free of those ideas, it saddened her to learn that it was not necessarily true. In regards to gender , we see how according to Harriet, women suffer in slavery more than men do. All of this came to her mind when she learned that her baby was born a girl, “When they told me my new-born baby 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. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own” (86).
When her mother died Harriet transitioned from living with different people each time until she came into Dr.

Flint’s hands. She soon realizes how slaves especially females were objectified by being treated as mere objects and not human beings. A clear example is how female slaves were treated as sexual objects in which they were bribed with presents and other things by the masters and even their sons. If they failed to accomplish their intentions, the slave would ultimately be tortured either by violence or by starving them until they changed their mind, “When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission to their will” (57). As young as fifteen years old, Dr. Flint whispers words in Harriet’s ear in which she clearly comprehends that they signify the cruel and sexual intentions Dr. Flint had towards her and the other female slaves, “ But I now entered on my fifteenth year—a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import…I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him” (30). It is also seen how despite being sexually accused by her master, Harriet becomes resigned and obliged to tolerate it because it is “her master” and they live in the

“same roof”. The idea of being treated as an object was further exemplified by the words Doctor Flint uses, “When he told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in everything; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his, never before had my puny arm felt half so strong” (20). This shows how slaves were given no human value, dignity, and the respect every human being deserves. Harriet even mentions how her soul felt like it wanted to revolt but she had to resist because no matter where she wanted to go, there was no law that protected her because she was black , which as mentioned before also symbolized racial prejudice.(30-32).
Besides being regarded as objects and property, Harriet and other slaves were seen as inferior due to their ignorance and this led to many slave owners to try and take advantage of them.

Ignorance was one of the major factors that led to slavery in the United States. The lies many slaves were told and their inability to defend themselves due to their lack of knowledge, made them feel inferior just because their skin was of a different color than others. It is seen how slaves feel inferior when Harriet describes the effects that ignorance has imposed on them. “I admit that the black man is inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white men compel him to live; it is the torturing whip that lashes manhood out of him; it is the fierce bloodhounds of the South, and the scarcely less cruel human bloodhounds of the north, who enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. They do the work” (49). A clear example of how slaves ignorance was something people wanted to take advantage off is the sermons Reverend Pike gave. The sermons clearly show the church’s hypocrisy because it used religion towards the slaves and to make them feel as if they owed total obedience towards their masters, “servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness if your heart, as unto Christ… you are rebellious sinners and god is angry with you… but God sees you and will punish you” (76-77). As we can see, if they did not

obeyed their masters they were often threatened by the own church under the idea that god will bring punishment upon them. In some instances physical abuse is seen, but most importantly we see how Harriet suffers psychological abuse to her mental and emotional health. When Harriet hides in her grandmother’s attic we see the situation in which she is confined to live in during that period. Firs, she is dealing with several illnesses and the attic has very little space for her besides being filled with darkness and rats. “To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the house, the darkness total…the rats and mice ran over my bed” (128-131). Harriet went to the attic in order to watch her children through a small hole and the feeling of desperation , thinking about her children each passing day , and living through the same routine each day made her feel psychologically tormented. She clearly describes that she has a more comfortable life than other slaves because she is not beaten, whipped, endures hard work, and burned with iron among other things, but has to deal with constant abuses by Doctor Flint. For example, being sexually harassed, having her children taken away, being cursed, and her seclusion on the attic were among the many things that tormented her mentally.
Throughout her life, Harriet was always persecuted due to her race and her gender. First, her race is the reason why she was born into the cruel life of slavery and her gender is the cause why she was sometimes objectified in many cases as a sexual object. Slave owners treated her and the other slaves as ignorant beings which eventually made them feel inferior because they did not have the knowledge or education to defend themselves. Harriet underwent a lot of mental cruelty by being sexually harassed, by living each day with the same sentiment of fear, and by being cursed constantly by Dr. Flint among many other things. These experiences shaped Harriet into another person and gave her courage throughout her journey. Sadly, Many of the things we see on the book like sexual objectification towards women is still sometimes seen in today’s society