Similarities Between Harriet Jacobs And Olaudah Equiano

The Pursuit of Identity

Harriet Jacobs and Olaudah Equiano were two African American writers who first handedly wrote and told about the cruel, savage experiences about the hardships of slavery. In Harriet Jacobs, “Incident in the life of a slave girl”, Jacobs endured numerous cases of sexual abuse as opposed to Equiano who, “ The Interesting Narrative Life of Olaudah Equiano” who suffered from various incidents of physical torture. Upon review of both captivity narratives, Jacobs and Equiano share common characteristics of their experiences from their sufferings, loss from family and resilience to escape their current situation.

While reading over a couple of narratives, many of them suffered during the majority of their lifetime. In their early

childhood, both Equiano and Harriet Jacobs did not even know they were slaves. Both of them were liberal at young age only with an external control due to their race. From Jacob's perspective, she recalls that she spent about six years before realizing that her liberated childhood was a farce while spending years of mental and physical abuse. While enduring the pain, Dr. Flint who is the master of Jacobs, goes above and beyond to flip the situation into deeper consequences. With intentions of her own, Jacobs also found a lover of her own. Flint dared and threatened to kill her lover just on the mere fact she has found passionate love. This fueled Flint to the convince and lure Jacobs in to give up and accept her role. Instead of her being the servant inferior to him, Flint feels as if he has sexual connection with her and wants Jacobs to be his mistress. This change of events is as wicked of the mind of Flint. For example, when out on the field, Flint randomly sends her letter periodically time and time throughout the day.
On page nine hundred twenty one , Jacobs says, “then I remembered, with a sigh, how slavery perverted all the natural feelings of the human heart.” When she recalls how slavery made brainwashed everyone on both sides, this quote is the main concept of her current situation. During this time period, slaves were treated to the equivalent of cattle as the slave masters and overseers were either hated beyond death or honored as idols interpreting the information according perspective of the slaves. This perspective coming from Jacobs make a connection with Equiano’s narrative as well. Equiano states, “ that no free negro's evidence will be admitted in their courts of justice.” Equiano implies that even a free african american individual could not justice in the court of law. On the other hand, free african americans did not have any masters or overseers to “settle” the dispute within court on the thin line of justice and injustice. They also punished at times even worse than slaves because of the fact of jealousy to witness a black person out the field as opposed that specific individual serving them as their inferior servants. Through his perspective , Equiano tried to confirm his payment of various goods sold by white men while no one was able or did not want to support him.
In both captivity narratives, the loss from family is stated in their respective journeys to freedom.

When Jacobs goes into hiding in attic, apart of her gone because the sole purpose of her staying in the attic is for the sake of her kids. As this situation is a gift and a curse, Jacobs can always observe Benny and Ellen to make sure Flint does not harm no matter the case. In this chapter, Jacobs in was more physiological debt than the physical debt. Within her circumstances, her freedom is extremely limited. Even opposed to another narrative, Henry “Box” Brown. Brown was born as slave in Louisa County, virginia. As a slave, he was sent to Richmond, Virginia to work at a tobacco factory. As a married man with children, Brown’s family was sold to a plantation in North Carolina. Brown was a god fearing man who established relationships with people outside his own race. His aids were Caesar Smith and Anthony who helped him escape out of Richmond. His plan was to be shipped in a cargo box from Richmond to Philadelphia where slavery was recently abolished. The differences between both narratives is that Jacobs went hiding to resolve her issues with a plan as while Brown shipped himself to escape his

situation.
All things considered, Equiano, Jacobs and Brown were all pioneers in bringing forth the reality of slavery. When all of the narratives went through different journeys on their goal to freedom, each of them may have got frustrated in the process but stayed resilient on becoming free individual.

Works Cited
Jacobs, Harriet, “Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl,” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume A, Eighth Ed., edited by Nina Baym, Norton, 2007, pp. 921.
Equiano ,Olaudah, “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano,” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume A, Eighth Ed., edited by Nina Baym, Norton, 2007, pp. page nos. of your work.