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Harriet Ann Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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In Harriet Ann Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a personal memoir, Jacobs tells her story about her experiences as a slave and her son followed escape from slavery. The story was written with no effort to disguise her political message. From the excerpt we read, it can easily be seen that she wants to do everything she can to help the millions of people who are still slaves. “Jacobs was very family-oriented and relationships were the main focus of her life” (InscriptionsJournal 3). This is proven many times as she talks about her grandmother and kids and their well-being. Jacobs rhetoric is pretty simple compared to other anti-slave writers such as Frederick Douglass. She does not use many metaphors or symbolism and gets her
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Harriet A. Jacobs was born a slave in North Carolina in 1813 and became a fugitive in the 1830s. She recorded her triumphant struggle for freedom in an autobiography that was published pseudonymously in 1861. As Linda Brent, the book 's heroine and narrator, Jacobs recounts the history of her family: a remarkable grandmother who hid her from her master for seven years: a brother who escaped and spoke out for abolition; her two children, whom she rescued and sent north. She recalls the degradation of slavery and the special sexual oppression she found as a slave woman: the master who was determined to make her his concubine. With Frederick Douglass 's account of his life, it is one of the two archetypes in the genre of the slave

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As a woman, Harriet Jacobs faced unique challenges in the slave society. She was forced to endure sexual abuse from her owner and struggled to protect her children from the same abuse. This experience is clear in her narrative, which focuses mainly on the sexual misuse of female slaves. She writes with passion, using her own experiences to gain the attention of free women in the North (Jacobs).

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When Jacobs escapes to New York, she is employed as a nurse to a white family and often accompanies them to dinners and events. This experience teaches Jacobs that even though most people in the North considered themselves abolitionists, they were still racist toward African Americans. While at a dinner with the family she is employed by, she is asked to “seat the little girl in the chair, and stand behind it and feed her,” (page 144) when she sits the child in her lap. She emphasizes the fact that no matter where she goes, slavery and racism will always follow

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In their respective narratives, both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs expose slavery as a brutal and degrading institution. Though the tone and approach they incorporate in their individual narratives differ, both seek to renounce the romanticized view of plantation culture and reveal the harsh actualities. Jacobs also seeks to debunk the stereotypical notion that house slaves lived a more privileged life than plantation slaves. Furthermore, Jacobs goes on to explain the role of the slave-mistress and how that complicates the life of a slave girl growing up in a house with a licentious master and his jealous wife.

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Jacobs was speaking directly to her Caucasian readers. She wanted to enlighten the Northern Caucasian readers because Northerners never truly understood what slavery consisted of. In fact, Southerners would minimize the everyday struggle of a slavery causing this allusion. 2. How and why did Aunt Martha save up to three hundred dollars?

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In doing so, they deal with scolding looks of men as well as dealing with the harsh critics’ opinions of their narratives. Jacobs’ narrative and Truths speech allows other slave women to not be discouraged by the mere fact that their skin was of color. With that said, they strive to build the confidence to fight for the equality of all women. Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth reflects the phenomenon of intersectionality through their confidence and willingness to fight for

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Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass are two names that cannot be skimmed over when examining the abolitionist movement in the United States. They were abolitionists who played key roles in dismantling slavery and ensuring equality for those in bondage. Both were former slaves and recounted their hardships when expressing the vile nature of the institution of slavery. Although they were both slaves in the same time period, their experience in enslavement had major differences. There were similarities, of course, as both their childhoods were stripped from them and their own lives were completely under the power of those who “owned” them in their enslavement.

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The word slave entitles the label of the person being legal property and is forced to obey the owners orders at all causes. For Harriet Jacobs she was claimed and labeled a slave at a young age and began her years of slavery. As we have learned from history, slaves were constantly mistreated and abused for their labor had no rights or say for their lives. Unlike Jacobs she wasn’t endured to hard beatings nor intensive labor like most slaves though she was still sexually abused by her owners. As a slave and a runaway Harriet Jacobs suffered more from psychological abuse than physical abuse because she was abused, separated from her family and was forced into hiding for most of her adult life.

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Despite the fact that they lost their mothers and realized their status as slaves at about the same age, Douglass’s and Jacobs’s feelings are very different. For instance, looking in the beginning of Jacobs’s autobiography, it is evident that she is filled with grief and sadness about losing her mother. She wrote, “I grieved for her, and my young mind was troubled with the thought who would now take care of me and my little brother” (Baym 923). After the death of her mother, Jacobs was attached to her grandmother, Aunt Marthy. For Jacobs, the relationship with her grandmother was a gift; her grandmother took over the mother’s role in her life.

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Jacobs shows that slaves feelings were insignificant when she stated, “Why does the slave ever love? Wgt allow the tendrils of the heart twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence.” Jacob did not see the point of slaves falling in love because they weren’t allowed to be with the person they loved. Slave owners

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I actually found it quite sad how Jacobs did not know that she was a slave until later in her childhood. Her sheltered life led to her shock of the disturbing imagery of slavery during her adolescent years. I agree with the idea of losing innocence. She can no longer grasp the pure principles she learned in her childhood due to slavery. I cannot imagine how frustrating it would be to be in her position.

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781 Words | 4 Pages

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet Jacobs, uses many rhetorical strategies to reveal the dangers that slaves face. These rhetorical strategies include metonymies, antitheses, and metaphors. Jacobs uses metonymies to highlight dangerous situations that female slaves often find themselves in. She explains

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725 Words | 3 Pages

Through an unwanted, forced rejection of Republican Motherhood due to slavery, Jacobs appeals to her audience to achieve her goal of denouncing slavery. If she were to criticize the patriarchal institutions outside of slavery, people would not be as sympathetic to the cause. This way, Jacobs is proving that freed African Americans, in a world without the institution of slavery, can add to the country in the same way

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My father was a carpenter, and considered so intelligent and skilful in his trade, that, when buildings out of the common line were to be erected, he was sent for from long distances, to be head workman. On condition of paying his mistress two hundred dollars a year, and supporting himself, he was allowed to work at his trade, and manage his own affairs. His strongest wish was to purchase his children; but, though he several times offered his hard earnings for that purpose, he never succeeded.” (page 820) Harriet Ann Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813. Jacobs grew up in a family where her father was able to keep her and her brother together without being separated.

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In my original forum post for Jacobs’ “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” I had mentioned my horror at Jacob’s quote towards the end of the novel. “Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage. I and my children are now free! We are as free from the power of slave holders as are the white people of the north; and though that, according to my ideals, is not saying a great deal, it is a vast improvement in my conditions.” It’s tough for me to accept that after all the hardships that Brent (Jacobs) had gone through; the death of her mother, being forced into sexual relations with her new owner Dr. Flint, being sent to be a field hand, fearing the future of her children, having to hide in an attic from an abusive

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