In the book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author Harriet Jacobs (also the main character in book), paints a very powerful, and emotion picture of what the institution of Slavery was like for the slave and master in America, and the toll that it took on the human soul. Before reading this book, I was given a list of questions to ponder on while reading. These questions ranged from, compare and contrast survival techniques used by two characters in the book, to was this work difficult to read and understand? After reading the book, I feel that I have a good grasp on the answer to the different questions, and will answer them now. The two characters that I will compare and contrast their survival techniques are Harriet …show more content…
If I went out for a breath of fresh air, after a day of unwearied toil, his footsteps dogged me. If I knelt by my mother’s grave, his dark shadow fell on me even there (p. 27). These unwanted advances took a toll on the minds of female slaves. No matter what they did, they could never get away from their master. It had to be a very terrible experience that only female slaves had to deal with. Also, if the female slaves in the book had any children, they had to worry about the master selling their children anytime they wanted to because the children belong to the masters and not the slave parents. I am not saying that male slaves did not care about their children, but women carry their children in their stomachs for nine months, and will always have a greater connection with their children than their father. While reading this book, my heart want out to the female slaves that had to adore such hardships in there life. I could not and will never understand completely what it would be like to have my body taken anytime and my children snatched away from me whenever the master wanted too. It was hard for slaves to make their life meaningful under such harsh conditions, but they did. Many slaves including Linda’s grandmother kept her sprites high by keeping her faith in God. Linda
During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.
In "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", Harriet Jacobs writes, "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women" (64). Jacobs' work shows the evils of slavery as being worse in a woman's case by the gender. Jacobs elucidates the disparity between societal dictates of what the proper roles were for Nineteenth century women and the manner that slavery prevented a woman from fulfilling these roles. The book illustrates the double standard of for white women versus black women. Harriet Jacobs serves as an example of the female slave's desire to maintain the prescribed virtues but how her circumstances often prevented her from practicing.
Slavery is a condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they work and live. Slavery has been around since the 1600’s. Jacobs a young female who recounts her life in the book “Incident’s in the life of a slave girl”, gives us an in depth look into her life and how she overcame slavery and gained herself the title of freedom. Now life was not easy for Jacobs. She struggled for much of her life and the kids she had out of wedlock had to suffer because she was a slave. Slavery is not a status that anyone wants to have especially if you are a woman and a slave.
The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a story about a girl named Linda Brent, who spent her early childhood in a happy home with her father and mother. Her life completely changed after the death of her mother. The six year old Linda was sent to live with her mother’s mistress, who treated her very well, taught her to read and write. Unfortunately, the happy days did not that last that long, her master died and Linda was sent to a relative of her master. Her new master, Dr. Flint was cruel and neglectful. He soon began to pressure Linda to have a sexual relationship with him. Over the course of the book, the author Harriet Jacobs discuss about her life as a woman slave living a cruel family, she also talks about the lives of other women slaves and the inhumane treatment that they have been through. Therefore, The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was more about the plight of enslaved women than the plight of enslaved African- American.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a slave narrative written by Harriet Ann Jacobs is highly commended for the portrayal of women during the excruciating times of slavery. Disregarding that the slave narrative was initially written for the audience of Caucasian women, “…, as white women constituted Jacobs’s primary audience at the time she wrote her narrative” (Larson,742) the struggles of being a female slave were emphasized throughout the narrative. Harriet Ann Jacobs elaborates on slave women’s worth being diminished. In the slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, the theme of the perils of slavery for women was portrayed by women being viewed
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Jacobs argues that many slaves were treated with extreme punishment and inhumanly in the south. She shows that slaves were treated more similarly to property than as workers or actual humans and the fear that they have because of it. This fueled many believers of the antislavery to take action in the abolition of slavery. Throughout Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs gives multiple examples that show the extreme treatment that many slaves encountered.
In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Harriet Jacobs shares her experience as a slave, from sexual advances from her master to being safe by being trapped in a crawling space intending to evoke an emotional response from Northern free women. Jacobs writes specifically to this group in order to enlighten them on the specific suffering of female slaves, mainly abuse from masters, and gain their sympathy, so they will move to abolish slavery. In order to complete this, Jacobs is compelled to break the conventions of proper female behavior at the time. Harriet Jacobs demonstrates the suffering of female slaves by creating a feminine connection to her female audience with the intention of earning their sympathy, defying the cult of
Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl had a different explanation narrative story than any other slavery stories we had read, especially with male-authored narrative because Jacob was engaging the readers with the issue she had challenged in her time period. Jacob mentions that her family was the most important people in her life because she gave us an idea that her family were depended to her emotional support (153-155). In fact, family was the most important mechanism for many slaves because they were dependent on each other for friendship, especially to maintain their confidence no matter what the situation they are going through.
Harriet Jacobs’ work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a powerful piece. In the slave narrative, she is battling to become a freed person which makes it didactic because Jacobs wants slavery to end. There is elements of gothic writings because it was something that truly happens.
No one in today’s society can even come close to the heartache, torment, anguish, and complete misery suffered by women in slavery. Many women endured this agony their entire lives, there only joy being there children and families, who were torn away from them and sold, never to be seen or heard from again.
In "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", Harriet Jacobs writes, "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women" (64). Jacobs' work presents the evils of slavery as being worse in a woman's case due to the tenets of gender identity. Jacobs elucidates the disparity between societal dictates of what the proper roles were for Nineteenth century women and the manner that slavery prevented a woman from fulfilling these roles. The book illustrates the double standard of for white women versus black women. Harriet Jacobs serves as an example of the female slave's desire to maintain the prescribed virtues but how her circumstances often prevented her from practicing.
I will be looking at the methods used by Jacobs and Anaya in attempting to generate respect from their readers regarding racial or ethnic minority groups, starting with Jacobs’ book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. I feel as though the entire book is attempting to get the white reader to respect and understand what life as a slave was all about. This life is something that no white person will ever be able completely understand, nor to truly feel as though they have walked a mile in her shoes. Especially white women, and women who are mothers themselves. In Xenia Xayasene’s culture presentation, her opening line said it best; “Imagine growing up having no idea what is going to happen in the near future when all you dream of is being a regular kid.” Also imagine being the mother that must carry a baby for nine months, and give birth, to then proceed to watch them grow up, knowing what their future holds. We will never know what it’s like to be a black woman who has lived life as a slave, enduring the trials and tribulations that women of this era had to go through. “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” (p 28). Yes, to some beauty is a curse no matter what race you are. But a person cannot help but to have some respect for those women who were beautiful enough to have their master force them into things that they did not want to be forced into. And then having to face their mistresses once the secret has been let out. These women had the strength and courage to carry on and live their lives every single day.
To begin, Harriett Jacobs carefully formulates a narrative that depicts the lives of slave girls and women as it truly was lived. Rather than conform to the readers' tastes and avoid the horrible gruesome details of the lives of female slaves, Jacobs grasps these events and passionately depicts them to her readers in hopes of some form of compassion. She knows her readers are never going to completely understand what women in slavery went through (it would take living it to comprehend) but she feels to protect them from these truths is only greater blurring the understanding of these issues. Jacobs details her life in hopes that her audience will begin to understand the hardships undertaken by innocent black women in the south and no longer sit quietly by and watch. Jacobs states that slavery is far more appalling for women; "they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own" (825). In order to truly touch her intended audience, she brings up topics that all women, free or enslaved, can understand - adultery, family, love. She hopes that by creating a piece that touches the personal lives of women, she will make it difficult for them not to stand in her shoes, even if just for a moment.
she still offered her help to the members of the family in return for their
She emphasizes that the life of a slave woman is incomparable to the life of a slave man, in the sense that a woman’s sufferings are not only physical but also extremely mental and emotional. Whether or not a slave woman is beaten, starved to death, or made to work in unbearable circumstances on the fields, she suffers from and endures horrible mental torments. Unlike slave men, these women have to deal with sexual harassment from white men, most often their slave owners, as well as the loss of their children in some cases. Men often dwell on their sufferings of bodily pain and physical endurance as slaves, where as women not only deal with that but also the mental and emotional aspect of it. Men claim that their manhood and masculinity are stripped from them, but women deal with their loss of dignity and morality. Females deal with the emotional agony as mothers who lose their children or have to watch them get beaten, as well as being sexually victimized by white men who may or may not be the father of their children. For these women, their experiences seem unimaginable and are just as difficult as any physical punishment, if not more so.