Summary Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs Racial and Gender Oppression

Harriet Jacobs wrote, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” using the pseudonym Linda Brent, and is among the most well-read female slave narratives in American history. Jacobs faces challenges as both a slave and as a mother. She was exposed to discrimination in numerous fronts including race, gender, and intelligence. Jacobs also appeals to the audience about the sexual harassment and abuse she encountered as well as her escape. Her story also presents the effectiveness of her spirit through fighting racism and showing the importance of women in the community.

During this time gender roles were clear, men were the providers for the family while the

Without God’s word clinging to her day and night, she would not have been able to stay as spiritually and emotionally strong as she had. Through the Bible, she had learned how to judge a person’s character based on their actions and this helped her with deciding who she could trust in her life. In ProQuest it states, such knowledge is vital to moral judgement, since ultimately a person must take responsibility for having a good or bad character (3). She also puts the cruel past of abuse behind her and focused on what was best for herself and her two children. With being a young woman with two children, she had no choice but to ask for help. The price of escaping was in the hands of Harriet’s grandmother who had been already granted her freedom. There, Jacobs would find safety in a tiny room built behind a secret door in her grandmothers shed. Harriet spends seven years cramped away in this room, watching the world and her children from a small peephole cut in the wood (“Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl” 6). The hiding was to protect herself from possible recapture of Dr. Norcom who never lost pursuit of her. Most of her days in hiding involved reading the Bible which allowed her spirits to remain hopeful for

Sawyer. Harriet’s next hope was to get her son to safety and then she would worry about her own freedom. It was not an easy task trying to stay hidden for this long but she felt this needed to happen for her life to unfold away from her dangerous past. Mary Willis is a friend that Harriet Jacobs encounters when she arrives in New York. Jacobs explains that, her heart and hand were always open to everyone in distress, and she always warmly sympathized with mine (Levine 927). Mrs. Willis was against slavery and did everything she could to help Jacobs out despite her being a fugitive slave. She led Harriet to a friend’s house where she would be able to work. During this time Dr. Norcom had passed away but the pursuit for Jacobs continued with his children. One of his daughters had married a man who had great interest in taking Jacobs back home. This Mr. Dodge, who claimed me as his property, was originally a yankee pedler in the south; then he became a merchant, and finally a slaveholder (Levine 927). He looked for any information that might guide him to find Jacobs for himself, even giving her the chance to buy her freedom if she revealed herself to him. Mrs. Willis had heard about this and sent a man to negotiate for Jacobs possible release. Mrs. Willis stated, I am rejoiced to tell you that the money for your freedom has been paid to Mr. Dodge (Levine 929). This was the day that Harriet