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Harriet jacobs literary appeals incidents in the life of a slave girl
Harriet jacobs literary appeals incidents in the life of a slave girl
Harriet jacobs literary appeals incidents in the life of a slave girl
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Slavery was a historically significant, yet dehumanizing period the United States encountered; the period conveys a reminder to humanity that individuals are created equal, as stated in our Constitution. One individual holds vivid memories of this dark period, she presents her anecdotes through the perception of a young woman, Linda Brent. The novel, Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs, primarily identifies the hardships slavery imposed upon African Americans, specifically Linda, during the period of slavery in the mid 1800’s and express how the fetters of slavery prohibit the main character from obtaining human rights sprouted from freedom. Although she battles the repercussions of slave laws and cruel slave owners, Linda …show more content…
In her early years of being induced to slavery, Linda was granted kind slave owners who recognized her humanity and considered her humanistic rights; however her owner passed and she is sold to a cruel family who inflicts verbal and physical abuse upon her, however this practice is encouraged in slave laws. Physical and verbal confrontations are not forbidden in the slave law, this practice is encouraged for whites to inflict upon blacks, this law making Linda’s identity difficult to convey. Linda manages an escape from the fetters of slavery in search of freedom however her owners send out a notice to obtain her, also a threat to take her children away and sell them (Jacobs, pg. 82). Stripped of her human rights under the title of slave, Linda’s owners disregard the fact that she is human, instead see her as profit and abuse the power of authority. Her identity of being a nursemaid is completely damaged by the views her owners inflict upon her overall self image; slavery completely slaughters the idea of black individual’s identity, instead they are viewed as a price. The identity of the nursemaid is deconstructed by the practice of slavery, the cruel and unusual treatment sends Linda into the seeking of her freedom. The treatment casted upon slaves was significantly cruel and dehumanizing due to slaves owners attempting to get much work out of their slaves as possible (Rohrer. 1 November 2016) and the lack of respect because of the skin color. Linda is graced by the charms of receiving a kind slave owner in the beginning of her journey as a slave, her perception of slavery is seen as pure and a constructed lifestyle. Linda is inflicted by constant verbal abuse from her next slave owner, and physical altercations happen on rare occasions, although her master swears to not make physical
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
Celia, a Slave, a book by author Melton McLaurin, shows the typical relationship between a slave woman and her master in America during the 1850s. The story is the perfect example of how relationships between slave and their masters and other non-blacks within the community. This is shown through Celia’s murder of her slave owner, Robert Newsom. It was also shown through the community’s reaction that was involved in unraveling her court case. The Celia personal story illustrated how slave women was treated by their slave owners and how the laws wasn’t effective at protecting slave during the 1850s. Celia’s story help shed light on woman injustices, unconstitutional rights and most importantly racial issues/discrimination.
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).
Jacobs uses the pseudonym Linda Brent to narrate her first-person account. Born into slavery, Linda spends her early years in a happy home with her mother and father, who are relatively well-off slaves. When her mother dies, six-year-old Linda is sent to live with her mother's mistress, who treats her well and teaches her to read. After a few years, this mistress dies and bequeaths Linda to a relative. Her new masters are cruel and neglectful, and Dr. Flint, the father, soon begins pressuring Linda to have a sexual relationship with him. Linda struggles against Flint's overtures for several years. He pressures and threatens her, and she defies and outwits him. Knowing that Flint will eventually get his way, Linda consents to a love affair with a white neighbor, Mr. Sands, saying that she is ashamed of this illicit relationship but finds it preferable to being raped by the loathsome Dr. Flint. With Mr. Sands, she has two children, Benny and Ellen. Linda argues that a powerless slave girl cannot be held to the same standards of morality as a free woman. She also has practical reasons for agreeing to the affair: she hopes that when Flint finds out about it, he will sell her to Sands in disgust. Instead, the vengeful Flint sends Linda to his plantation to be broken in as a field hand.
In Linda Brent’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Brent’s grandmother showed her compassion by giving her a place she could call home. Her grandmother provided a place in her desperate hours of needs; she had to hide from her slave owners at her grandmother’s house. Even though the home was a hiding place with horrible living conditions, Brent preferred it over slavery, as she stated, "It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without gl...
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
Using the pseudonym Linda Brent, Harriet Jacobs wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, to alert Northern white women to the dangers faced by enslaved African American women in the South. The narrative details her experience of slavery, emphasizing the sexual harassment she experienced working in the home of Dr. Flint (Dr. James Norcom).
During the antebellum period of the United States, slavery was harshly practiced by white slave owners. The book Celia, a Slave is a factual interpretation of one isolated incident that depicted a very common slave fear during that era. Through illustrating the true horrific life of a young female slave who was constantly brutally raped by her master, the author Melton McLaurin, explains a better understanding of what slavery was actually was like to today’s society. The story of Celia is an emblem of the root of racial problems that America still faces today in society.
Women slaves were subject to unusually cruel treatment such as rape and mental abuse from their master’s, their unique experience must have been different from the experience men slaves had. While it is no secret that the horrors of the institution of slavery were terrible and unimaginable; those same horrors were no big deal for southern plantation owners. Many engaged in cruelty towards their slaves. Some slave owners took particular interest in their young female slaves. Once caught in the grips of a master’s desire it would have been next to impossible to escape. In terms of actual escape from a plantation most women slaves had no reason to travel and consequentially had no knowledge of the land. Women slaves had the most unfortunate of situations; there were no laws that would protect them against rape or any injustices. Often the slave that became the object of the master’s desires would also become a victim of the mistress of the household. Jealousy played a detrimental role in the dynamic the enslaved women were placed within. Regardless of how the slave felt she could have done little to nothing to ease her suffering.
In the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is Linda Brent, who, in the beginning lives her early years in a comfortable home with her parents, who are somewhat slaves. When her mother passes away, six-year-old Linda is sent to stay with her mother’s mistress, who treats her fine and teaches her to read. After a few years, this mistress also passes away, forcing Linda to go and live with a relative. Her new masters are unkind...
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.
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
After the English had come and took over the land in the 1400’s , being a woman came with so many burdens and troubles, but the hardest part of being a woman, they never experienced freedom. As a woman, you had no sense of personal value to a man, you were expected to do as you were told and were severely punished if you did not. Being a woman meant you were property, and with owning property, a way for white land-owning men to make a profit. Along with making a profit, because they were considered property, they could be treated any way the “property owner” saw fit. Women were raped and beat with no freedom to speak up.
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.