Summary Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

1057 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Incidents in the life of a slave girl analysis pdf

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl In the excerpt of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", Harriet Jacobs aims to convince her readers how slavery effects young girl 's life’s. She wields control over her audience because of the nature of the autobiography. Autobiographical works are based in that only one point of view is presented and that is the point of view of the protagonist. Jacobs uses rhetorical strategies and maneuvers to shape the reactions of their readers in her narrative. She repeatedly includes realistic images of brutality at the hands of the slave-owners, constantly uses an emotional appeal, connotation, and euphemism. Jacobs begins her passage using clear detail and straightforward language, except when talking about her sexual history to fully describe what it is like to be a slave. On lines 3-5, Jacobs uses connotation when she says "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." She uses connotation by saying her master whispered foul words in her ear, which makes the reader have to imply that he rapes her. Jacobs says that Northerners only think …show more content…

On line 21, she refers to slavery as "The degradation, the wrongs, the vices," in which she uses Synathroesmus. Synathroesmus is a series of adjectives compiled often in the service of criticism. The reader can note that she criticises slavery by the diction in the passage. Jacobs wanted a better life along with a better life for her children. It would have killed her to ever have to witness her children being treated brutally and harsh by their master. Her life would have been immensely easier if slavery would have been abolished in her time period, but since there was no way that could happen in the time frame she lived in she chose to escape with the only intention of it being a better future for her

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

  • Harriet Jacobs And Fanny Fern: A Literary Analysis

    1654 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jacobs using an important figure of the abolitionist movement not only catches the eyes of the readers, but it also helps to make her argument more convincing to establish the antislavery movement. Even in the editor’s note provided by Child herself, it helps for the readers to believe that what Jacobs is saying is the truth, and further helps the argument that the slave narrative is not an exaggeration.

    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

  • 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

  • Incidence In The Life Of A Slave Girl

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl opens with an introduction in which the author, Harriet Jacobs, states her reasons for writing an autobiography. Her story is painful, and she would rather have kept it private, but she feels that making it public may help the antislavery movement. A preface by abolitionist Lydia Maria Child makes a similar case for the book and states that the events it records are true.

    Read More

  • Olaudah Equiano And Harriet Jacobs Analysis

    1017 Words  | 3 Pages

    Equiano way of slavery is differently than that of Jacobs. Equaino was taken from his homeland of Africa. He was apart of what is known as the Middle Passage which was considered a deadly voyage for many slaves that were apart of this voyage across the Atlantic. After his arrival, he experience the hard labor. Jacobs, who was born into slavery was already born in what was considered the "New America". Equiano way of telling his narratives was in more of a chronological way with vivid description of what he was being faced with everyday. Jacobs not only told what slavery was like for her, but also provide more emotion than that of Equiano. She gave stories of others like slave that was previously own by Dr. Flint and fathering of other slave 's children. Unlike Equiano, he was given his other name of Gustavus Vassa by his master, Jacobs wrote her narrative under the name of Linda Bendt and changed names of others in her narrative in order to protect the reputation of those . Although Equiano talks about what woman 's went through during slavery, it was Jacobs he gave more of an in-depth of it with dealing with lust from a master and only being known as the property of her master and her master only. Both authors expressed in their own way that once you fall into slavery, you lose sense of who you are and the morals you were brought up

    Read More

  • Despair in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    Linda Brent, Ms. Jacobs' pseudonym while writing "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," became so entrenched in hatred of slaveholders and slavery that she lost sight of the possible good actions of slaveholders. When she "resolved never to be conquered" (p.17), she could no longer see any positive motivations or overtures made by slaveholders. Specifically, she could not see the good side of Mr. Flint, the father of her mistress. He showed his care for her in many ways, most notably in that he never allowed anyone to physically hurt her, he built a house for her, and he offered to take care of her and her bastard child even though it was not his.

    Read More

  • Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl And Frederick Douglass

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass and Slavery

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...f Jacobs’s narrative is the sexual exploitation that she, as well as many other slave women, had to endure. Her narrative focuses on the domestic issues that faced African-American women, she even states, “Slavery is bad for men, but it is far more terrible for women”. Therefore, gender separated the two narratives, and gave each a distinct view toward slavery.

    Read More

  • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

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

    1350 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harriet Jacobs takes a great risk writing her trials as a house servant in the south and a fugitive in the north. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl gives a true account of the brutality slavery held for women. A perspective that was relatively secretive during Jacobs’ time. Jacobs’ narrative focuses on subjugation due to race but it also portrays many women an strong and often open roles. Women in these roles were minimal and often suffered for their outspoken roles.

    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

  • Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and Harriet Ann Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    1135 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...the inclusion of both African American Woman, as well as African American men into this categorization of property. Jacobs introduces the reader to the concept of slavery as she opens the novel with the impactful line: “I was born a slave” (Jacobs, Ch. 1).

    Read More

  • Jacob's Experience With The White Southerners Analysis

    120 Words  | 1 Pages

    Jacob’s experience with the white southerners was tragically horrifying. For example, the Flint family possessed unscrupulous beliefs and showed how they treated their slaves with an unpleasant attitude. In Jacob’s opinion, there were southern whites that were attentive and offered aid for her. She found a similar situation in the north where she was shocked to observe the racism portrayed by some whites and serene by the love she received from other whites. Jacob wrote about Mrs. Bruce who was the first white woman who she felt at peace in her heart. Therefore, Jacob’s emotions between white southerners and northerners were difficult to express because it was hard to trust someone of a white complex who were usually disloyal.

    Read More

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

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “The Trial of Girlhood” and “A Perilous Passage In the Slave Girl’s Life” Jacobs’s narrative emphasizes the problems that are faced by female slaves. She shares the sexual abuses that are commonly practiced by slave master against young female slaves. She does this through revealing the unique humiliation and the brutalities that were inflicted upon young slave girls. In this narrative we come to understand the psychological damage caused by sexual harassment. We also realize how this sexual harassment done by the slaveholders went against morality and “violated the most sacred commandment of nature,”(Harriet 289)as well as fundamental religious beliefs.

    Read More

More about Summary Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Open Document