Harriet Jacobs’s autobiography, Incident in the life of a Slave Girl, reads like s flowing novel. Meant to be an account on the cruelties of slavery, Jacobs’s autobiography takes on the undertones of seduction novel. Prevalent in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century seduction novels, like Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, warned young women to guard their virtue from temptation of amoral men. Unlike other authors of slave narratives of the time, Harriet combines her personal story with the fictional characteristics of a seduction novel.
Jacob begins incorporating aspects of seduction novels starting at the beginning of her work. Reflecting on this style of writing Jacobs opens her narrative with her recollection of her innocence and ignorance about the life as a slave.
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Sands is comparable to the character of Monroeville in Charlotte Temple. Both men in the beginning of their relationship with the protagonist seem like nice charismatic men. Harriet describes Mr. Sand in her narrative as showing concern and having sympathy for her situation in life. Soon after the start of the affair between Harriet and Mr. Sand, she learns that she is pregnant. She later succeeds in using her pregnancy to spoil Dr. Flint’s plot to make her his mistress. Unfortunately, her Success is short-lived; soon finding out that her master is going to send her to his plantation to work in the field. Therefore, to avoid the punishment Harriet hides to in her grandmother’s attack. Again, Mr. Sand inters Harriet’s life after purchasing their children from Harriet’s master saying that he will free their children. Unfortunately, Sands character begins to wane after his marriage to another woman and Harriet begins to fear that he will not keep his word. The situation is almost the mirror image of what occurred in Charlotte Temple, when Monroeville left Charlotte and their child to marry another woman. Then Charlotte feels complete desperation that this man will never help her