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Harriet Jacob's Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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“By degrees, a more tender feeling crept into my heart. He was an educated and eloquent gentleman; too eloquent, alas, for the poor slave girl who trusted in him.” In the early 1830’s, as a slave, you did what you were told and you weren’t supposed to ask questions or say no. That is just how things were back then and if you did otherwise you were beaten and punished for it by a white man. “Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. The events described in this passage took place around 1830. Jacob’s life was filled with drama. Unrelenting sexual exploitation drive her into hiding. For seven years, a black family sheltered her in a tiny crawl space of their home until Harriet was able to escape New York City in 1842” (pg. 203, Jacobs). In the article “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” Jacobs focuses on how having power gave her a voice to stand up against the whites versus other slaves decided to allow the slavery, rape/sexual contents, and physical/psychological abuse. …show more content…

Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another.” She explains how it feels to be a slave and how you wouldn’t know what it felt like to be a slave, unless you have been a slave before. “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own,” (Number 4, Sparknotes). In this quote it’s talking about how for men slavery was bad but for women it was more harsh and cruel then what was happening to them. In addition slavery was a piece of her life that made her do what was necessary to

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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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695 Words | 3 Pages

Although she did not receive any physical punishment by her master, she lived in a tight-knit community and was aware of the conditions of other slaves who received brutal punishments. For example, Jacobs notes that “every where men, women, and children were whipped till the blood stood in puddles at their feet.” (page 56). Female slaves lived in fear that they would be raped by their masters. Jacobs’ master, Dr. Flint, often made relentless sexual advances at her, and justified his behavior by saying that she was “made for his use.”

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813 Words | 4 Pages

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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714 Words | 3 Pages

Harriet Jacobs, or Linda Brent as she liked to be called, was born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813. She grew up really happy, unaware of her status of being a slave. When she was 6 years old, her mother died and since then she learnt of her status of being a slave (Jacobs, 9). She had a very hardworking father who was also a slave and a younger brother called William, whom she loved so much. Her maternal grandmother helped to raise her and William.

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1360 Words | 6 Pages

In Incidents In the Life of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Harriet shares her experience in slavery and how she overcame trials presented in the form of her master and mistress, and how she battled constant separation from her family and children. In order to protect herself from her master, who constantly attempts to pressure Harriet into a sexual relationship with him, Harriet becomes involved in a relationship with a white man and gains two children. However, in order to escape slavery, Harriet stays for seven years in a small shed in her grandmother’s home and eventually gains her freedom. The book shows that in a system of slavery, family ties and the idea of motherhood are two things that are almost unachievable due to the uncertainty

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654 Words | 3 Pages

1315334 Harriet Jacobs was born a slave. Until the age of six she had a "normal" childhood. In her book From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), she shares her experiences of what it was like to be a slave. Jacobs says herself she created this piece of writing because, " I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is. Only by experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations.

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527 Words | 3 Pages

However she would realize her husband would sleep with and impregnate his slaves. The wife’s of the slave owners would be very revengeful and jealous, due to the fact that their husbands would have kids with his slaves and see her kids as well as the slave women’s kids in the same household. . These women lived a fake, sad and miserable life due to the fact that their husband’s would be unfaithful with his slaves. In the passage Harriet states that women would be ashamed and not approve of what their husbands where doing, saying “‘He not only thinks it no disgrace to be the father of those little niggers, but he is not ashamed to call himself their master. I declare, such things ought not to be tolerated in any decent society!’”.

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1046 Words | 5 Pages

Harriet Ann Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an autobiography by Jacobs that describes her life under the pseudonym Linda Brent, in which she describes her journey from slavery to being a free woman. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was first published in 1861 during the Civil War and explained the painful experiences she had to undergo as an enslaved person. Jacobs had to undergo countless hardships during her duration enslaved to become free. Jacobs' autobiography is an important book that brings to light the first-person experiences that resulted from slavery and the risks enslaved people such as Jacobs put themselves through to escape and become free. Throughout Jacobs' incidents in Incidents in the Life of a Slave

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1802 Words | 8 Pages

She had lived her first years as happy child, but when her mother died, Harriet Jacobs was sent to her mother’s master, Margaret Hornblow, who taught her to read, write, and sew. Harriet’s master Margaret, had always shown love and affection to Harriet, which she did not realize her life as a born slave girl. In the year 1825, Harriet’s master Margaret had passed

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884 Words | 4 Pages

In this memoir, the author, Harriet Jacobs, describes her life as a slave in the southern United States. She informs the reader on the hardships that not only she, but all slaves suffered during this time period. These hardships were particularly difficult for women in slavery as they bore unique burdens compared to men or children in slavery. Women were regarded as the weaker sex, so they were often given jobs such as weaving clothes or nannying the master’s children. While these jobs may appear to be easier, they could, in fact, be more taxing then physical jobs that the men performed.

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By telling this story, Harriet mocks the claim that slave owners are like fathers. She shows they do not protect their slaves, and slave masters are the problem. Harassing a girl fourteen years old to have sex, is nowhere close to father like; it is barely even

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1136 Words | 5 Pages

Equivocating the “Slave” In order to properly understand the capacity of being able to live a life of constant stress and then articulate the life’s story in a fashion that grasps more than the intended audience, when it comes stories being told regarding chattel slavery, one needs to closely read to thoroughly examine the literature of the overall experience. Harriet Jacobs, also published as Linda Brandt, was a daughter, former chattel property/slave, permanent mother/granddaughter, and abolitionist turned profound author. In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Jacobs pleaded with her targeted Northern colonized female audience in a chance to aide in the severe inhumane predicaments that occupied the Southern

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909 Words | 4 Pages

Unlike many blacks Harriet master taught her how to read and write. She then became the first women to write a slave narrative. At a very young age her master was constantly after her, he would whisper fouled thing in her ears as she described, although he did not force himself into her he wanted to control her and would always remind her that she was is and one day she would submit to his demands. Harriet described a black girl beauty as a burden a curse because the masters would be after them and from that time they didn’t consider it as rape. Even in the court of the law the judges would say there is no such thing as the rape of a black woman.

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769 Words | 4 Pages

Harriet Ann Jacobs is the first Afro-American female writer to publish the detailed autobiography about the slavery, freedom and family ties. Jacobs used the pseudonym Linda Brent to keep the identity in secret. In the narrative, Jacobs appears as a strong and independent woman, who is not afraid to fight for her rights. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published in 1961, but was unveiled almost 10 years later due to the different slave narrative structure. Frequently, the slave narratives were written by men where they fight against the slavery through literacy by showing their education.

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155 Words | 1 Pages

Harriet Jacobs’ life story is full of pain. She was born to a slave family. She enjoyed happy family life until the death of her mother, when she was a tender child. At the age of six, she was taken into the home of white mistress, who taught her to read and to sew. “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away’’ (ILSG 6).

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