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Analysis Of Rape 'By Harriet Jacobs' Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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The repetition of having inevitability in the poem “Rape” by Jayne Cortez, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs, and the play “Safe” by Georgia Douglas Johnson all help the authors strengthen the message of what happen when extreme choices are made when no other options are left.
In the poem “Rape”, Joanna and Inez are both victims of attempted rape. For the both of them, killing their attack was the only way to get out of the situation. The phrase “And just what the fuck else were we supposed to do?” is repeated to show that even though murdering them is extreme, their had not other choice but to defend themselves. It would cause inevitable destruction to occur in their lives by someone out of spite for being black if they had not stood up for themselves. This was war for them because murdering them was the only way of protecting themselves and their freedom to live. …show more content…

Flint. “I would do anything and everything, for the sake of defeating him. What could I do?” (Jacobs 57). She know that her life would be a devastating tragedy if she did not find away to escape from his psychological hold on her. “ I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me” (Jacobs 58). During this slavery time period, it is inevitable for a young slave girl to grow up prematurely knowing about sexual exposure. She tried her best to keep her virginity, but she was forced under the control of Dr. Flint to give it up in order to get her closer to becoming free, even though it meant her grandmother would be disappointed in her. Linda is unable to keep her purity for as long as she wanted to as a sacrifice for a better

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Chapter IX of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, titled “Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders”, provides true imagery of the brutality of slavery. The author, Harriet Jacobs, who goes by the name of Linda, goes through a process of dehumanizing experiences by a multitude of slave owners in her city, Dr. Flint and Mrs. Flint. In the book several neighboring slave owners are mentioned including: Mr. Litch, Mrs. Wade, and Mr. Conat. To start, though, Mr. Litch, who creates unique ways in torturing his slaves by means of even starvation and murder.1 In addition to this torture, Harriet mentions a neighbor of Mr. Litch, Mr. Conat, who was not as discussed in the book, punished a slave by forcing him to spend a winter night outside and naked. Following this, a neighboring

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The extreme cruelty experienced by the victims of the South’s “peculiar institution” in Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, reflect the inhumanity of the time period’s slave owners and the impact they had on their slaves both physically and mentally. Harriet’s transfer to the Flint’s household offers several examples of the malice the owners hold in quick succession. The Flint’s have their own ways of treating the cooks, both callous. Mrs. Flint spits into the pots and pans, rendering any food left within them .

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“The catholic church is the only thing that frees a man from degrading slavery of being a child of his age(G.K. Chesterton).” The slaves in Harriet Jacobs book “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Harriet Jacobs described the relationship between the slaves and the church, and how religion tries to convince them that if you don’t obey your master God will get you. The church is trying to cover the truth about religion and trying to pressure the slaves to do what they supposed to do. Slaves and the church had a strong bond to find joy and depict to deal with the pain of slavery.

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In the book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs argued that slavery should be abolished. According to Jacobs, slavery should be abolished because, "slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks” (Jacobs, 462) because of the intensive abuse imposed on all those involved in slavery. Jacobs used an exhaustive list of examples of physical, sexual, emotional and mental abuse in the book. Although Harriet Jacobs had a very fortunate upbringing (Jacobs, 415), starting in her early teenage years in her life, Jacobs saw and experienced many forms of physical abuse to the slaves around her.

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Harriet Jacobs focuses mostly on detailing the maltreatment of slaves and the impropriety of slave masters during the first part of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. By sharing facts about these incidents, she shows how slaveholding warps humanity and morality to a measure that would be considered deplorable outside of slavery. Jacobs describes the inhumane treatment of slaves when discussing a neighboring plantation. She shares how this plantation commits many cruel murders of its slaves. For example, she discusses how one slave had a “fire kindled over him, from which was suspended a piece of fat pork.

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The lives of everyone were impacted during the time of slavery. African Americans faced daily obstacles in their lives while being considered as property. In the excerpt from “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” published by Harriet Jacobs, and the interview “Charity Anderson Mobile, Alabama” the story of Charity Anderson, both reflections from former slaves, reveal opposing points of view of their unjust lives as slaves by their treatment while considered slaves, and their differing levels of education. Not all slaves were treated the same, even though many shed blood on the plantations of their masters. Treatment differed on the master, and treatment was not cruel all the time.

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Breaking Chains: Displaying the Resilience and Quest for Freedom: Unveiling the Struggles and Triumphs of Enslaved Women in 19th Century America Ariel Freedman 11A US History 23. May. 2023 Empathy can never fully be absent; although it can only be diminished, a lack of kindness can change over time, and people can develop feelings of an issue. In Harriet Ann Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she attempts to increase the empathic state of the readers of her time. Her pen name was Linda Brent. Born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, in the early 1800s.

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Douglass’s Message to Women Frederick Douglass gives many examples of the treatment of women like the following passage: “this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and made a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.” (Douglass 1183) Through this passage, Douglass brings to light that enslaved women are raped by their masters because of the master’s lust and the master’s desire to produce more slaves. By looking at the passage in the context of the rest of Narrative of Life, Douglass makes it clear that women who are raped by their masters and birth a child from the rape have it worse than others because of the excess brutality they receive from the master’s wife.

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