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Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Decent Essays

Chris Shea
ENG 348
Professor Christine Doyle
04/05/16
Analytical Response Paper #8
In her 1861 autobiographical novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs makes no effort in hiding the evil ruthlessness of her master Dr. Flint and how it’s inherited by his entire family including his wife and daughter. The despicable acts committed by the Flint family perpetuated by Dr. Flint lead to physical and emotional scarring on their slaves, and they ultimately lead to Jacobs’ belief that all slave masters are cruel in their own way.
What is worse about all this is Linda (the pen name for author Harriet Jacobs) has a very pleasant childhood before Dr. Flint ruined it all. For the first six years of her childhood, Linda doesn’t even know she was a slave. Her family takes good care of her and she has a real sense of freedom at the time. But although she soon learned she was a slave herself through overhearing the other slaves, her life …show more content…

The scene itself is happy for the three children involved, but Linda knows better for the sake of the slave girl. “I foresaw the inevitable blight that would fall on the little slave’s heart. I knew how soon her laughter would be changed to sighs.” (Jacobs 28).
As for Dr. Flint’s thoughts on love, his heart is filled with anger in chapter seven when Linda reveals she wants to marry the free black man who proposed to her. He and Linda have a heated exchange on the matter, with Dr. Flint calling him a ‘puppy’. But Linda argues, “‘If he is a puppy, I am a puppy, for we are both of the negro race. It is right and honorable for us to love each other.’” (Jacobs 35). It may be for a variety of reasons, but Dr. Flint does not take to this new-found freedom of hers too kindly. “He sprang upon me like a tiger, and gave me a stunning blow.’” (Jacobs

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