The notion of slavery, as unpleasant as it is, must nonetheless be examined to understand the hardships that were caused in the lives of enslaved African-Americans. Without a doubt, conditions that the slaves lived under could be easily described as intolerable and inhumane. As painful as the slave's treatment by the masters was, it proved to be more unbearable for the women who were enslaved. Why did the women suffer a grimmer fate as slaves? The answer lies in the readings, Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl and Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative which both imply that sexual abuse, jealous mistresses', and loss of children caused the female slaves to endure a more dreadful and hard life in captivity. It is a difficult predicament to be in when one is held in captivity. The situation is that much worse if a child finds himself held as a slave. From a young age the child must endure the fact that he is owned and not free to live life on his own terms. A child slave is already denied his freedom and childhood in the sole fact that he is a slave. However, female child slaves had to endure yet another hardship that made life that much more difficult. Young African girls that were enslaved were sexually abused from an early age. Olaudah Equiano, in Interesting Narrative, tells of misfortunes that the female slaves met with at the hands of white men that he witnessed aboard a ship that belonged to his master, he writes: "I have even known them gratify their brutal passion with females not ten years old" (p. 483) Equia... ... middle of paper ... ...re taken advantage of, put down, and stripped of their dignity after they were victimized and sexually abused. Jealous and enraged mistresses, who were dismayed at the fact that their husbands were living a life of infidelity, mistreated them. In some cases, they were deprived of their most prized possessions, their children. This kind of life for the female slaves was overwhelmingly painful. They dealt with many circumstances that were not a part of the lives of male slaves. For this reason, it is fair to say that the lives of female slaves were harsher than the lives of male slaves. Works Cited Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself. 1861. Ed. Olaudah, Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Yassa, Written by Himself. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
The book The Classic Slave Narratives is a collection of narratives that includes the historical enslavement experiences in the lives of the former slaves Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Olaudah Equiano. They all find ways to advocate for themselves to protect them from some of the horrors of slavery, such as sexual abuse, verbal abuse, imprisonment, beatings, torturing, killings and the nonexistence of civil rights as Americans or rights as human beings. Also, their keen wit and intelligence leads them to their freedom from slavery, and their fight for freedom and justice for all oppressed people.
This day in age, everything is always compared whether it is social status, racial problems, etc. A popular topic tends to be gender equality and the different things both male and females endure, such as the fact that it is a lot easier for men to get a high paying job compared to women. Along the same lines, their suffering is also compared. In Harriet Jacobs, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Jacob’s shares her experiences as a slave, including the most traumatizing moments she went through. Although there is no doubt that every slave suffered greatly, women suffered the most during this time period; women went through sexual exploitation, psychological damage, and shame.
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,
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Edited by Angelo Costanzo. Orchard Park, NY: Broadway Literary Texts, 2004.
After reading the slavery accounts of Olaudah Equiano 's "The Life of Olaudah Equiano" and Harriet Jacobs ' "Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl", you gain knowledge of what slaves endured during their times of slavery. To build their audience aware of what life of a slave was like, both authors gives their interpretation from two different perspectives and by two different eras of slavery.
The first topic found in these books is the difference in the roles of women and men slaves. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl gives us the women 's point of view, their lifestyle and their slave duties and roles. On the other hand, The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows us the male side of slavery; the duties and role of men slaves and their way of living their situation. Both books state clearly the roles of both men and women slaves. We can easily observe the fact that slaves’ roles were based on their gender, and the different duties they had based on these roles. This gender role idea was based on American society’s idea of assigning roles based only on gender. Slave men’s role was most of the time simple. Their purpose was mainly physical work. In
In her story Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs presents what life was like living as a female slave during the 19th century. Born into slavery, she exhibits, to people living in the North who thought slaves were treated fairly and well, how living as a slave, especially as a female slave during that time, was a heinous and horrible experience. Perhaps even harder than it was if one had been a male slave, as female slaves had to deal with issues, such as unwanted sexual attention, sexual victimization and for some the suffering of being separated from their children. Harriet Jacobs shows that despite all of the hardship that she struggled with, having a cause to fight for, that is trying to get your children a better life
In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, Jacob’s writing demonstrates to challenge the acceptance of slavery during the 1800’s. Jacobs, who is writing inside a “contact zone” tries to connect both societies in this story.
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
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Harriet Jacobs, an innocent-born African American girl, was born into the slavery-ridden North Carolina in 1813. Jacobs’ young years seemed to last forever, until it all took a complete turn. Harriet Ann Jacobs writes Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in order to expose the life of a slave girl to Northerners. This primary source shows the Northerners, and now the world, the hardships of a slave girl, their everyday lives, the public’s view then, and their constant fight for survival.
Being impacted by discrimination as a female is hard. According to Alonzo, Harriet Ann Jacobs proclaims in her writing that being a female slave was much worse that men slaves because they were violated and disregarded in much more ways (Alonzo 118-122).In “Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs attempt to persuade white audiences of the sinfulness of slavery through eyewitness testimony about its horror” (McClish 42). Harriet Ann Jacobs shows the experiences as a female slave and the corruption of the society and the power of the white people (McClish 27-55).
For this paper, I will focus on Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery, by Jennifer L. Morgan. I choose to use this as one of my secondary sources because it outlines the absurd ideologies that many non-slaves, such as slave owners, constructed regarding African American women fertility, by exposing their reproductive abilities. My paper is exploring how many African American women were not just abused as slaves, but as means for sexual pleasure, reproductive use, and for mere economic profit. Discussing such a horrific topic is very difficult, so in this paper I am seeking to explore how Jennifer Morgan describes all the cruel racial injustices that African women experienced from their perspective, and the perspective
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is a perfect sentimental narrative. Sentimental lecture became popular by women in the 1850s. Sentimental themes shown in Jacobs’s work include the sacred bonds, separation, love, death, heartbreak, sacrifice, and emotional feelings and sympathy throughout the narrative. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs writes an account of what slavery was like for her, a female slave.
When somebody reflects the hardships of slavery, they typically think solely of the treatment towards African Americans. What most people are not aware of is how women were treated, whether they were of color or not. In Harriet Jacobs book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she explains “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.” The cruel treatment towards female slaves and the struggles held by Southern women during the Civil war are disregarded by the majority of people today, even though it is a significant part of American history and still affects society. Slaveholders would often rape and impregnate their slave women, and then never let the women care for their mixed children. Actions like this contribute to prostitution today, yet people still do not consider prostitution a form of slavery. These truths are tangible today due to African American authors Susie King Taylor and Kate Stone. Thankfully, white abolitionist women such as Ida B. Wells and Mary Chesnut were around to stand up for slaves and women.