Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

There’s no doubt in history that the slave life was the worst fate one could be born into. Even the Southern women, though deeply racist, hated slavery and the paternalism that went with it. Linda Brent in Harriet Jacobs’ account of her life in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl retells the stories of how Linda/Harriet grew up, bounced from mistress to master, learned hard life lessons, and eventually found “freedom.” Meanwhile, Barbara Welter’s article The Cult of True Womanhood shows the values that a Northern free woman held dearly when left to be a “slave” of virtue. An analysis of Welter’s article as well as Harriet Jacobs’ biography of her pseudonym shows how Linda Brent desperately wanted to fulfil the expectations of a white woman,

In Harriet Jacobs’ book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs retells her story of slavery, as well as her suffering, and shows the virtues of true womanhood that not only she, but also many other slave women tried to upheld in order to prove that they were, in fact, humans, and women at that. However, this proved to be a difficult task, as Jacobs shows. For the life of Linda, her fate was set out for her the day she was born. Her parents, who were slaves, as well as her grandmother who was also a slave, yet a well-respected slave in the community set Linda up for a life of servitude herself. The young slave girl was forced to grow up too fast, realizing only at the age of 6 that she was a slave. One of the first examples of Northern virtue that Linda so desperately tries to uphold is the virtue of purity. When she was only still a girl of 15 years, her master, Mr. Flint took advances, whispers in her ears saying foul things (Jacobs 26). However her master was not too quick to add action to his words, in fear of her grandmother’s authority, even as a black woman. Linda continues to be unwilling to the advances of Mr. Flint, and he doesn’t go any further than menacing words. Linda, in order to have an ounce of control in her life, turns to Mr. Sands, Linda hopes that if she has sex with him, he’ll buy her away from the horrors of the Flint family. Jacobs writes about how she knew it was wrong, but the demon of slavery overcame her fight to keep herself pure and to maintain her self-respect (Jacobs 48). This is both hard for Linda as well as her grandmother, who had tried to protect her from the harm of the sin of impurity. Looking towards the virtue of piety, though it is well known that slaves had a huge amount of faith, being able to worship in a way that was approved by the white man was difficult to accomplish. While some slaves