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Harriet Jacobs Motherhood

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs is Jacobs life story under the pseudonym Linda Brent. Jacobs’ main focus or theme in the novel is motherhood and the effects of slavery on the female sex. She directs the novel to a female white middle class audience. She initially wrote the novel under a pseudonym to protect her identity and herself from cruelty because it was published in 1861, also the year the civil war started. She agreed to writing her story to expose the wretched life African American female slaves endured. There are many male perspectives of woman slaves, but they are only an outsiders view. In order to fully understand the barbarities female slaves underwent, Jacobs recreated herself and her story in Incidents …show more content…

When she was six years old her mother passed away and Jacobs discovered the tragic truth; she was a slave. After he mothers death, “she was sent to live in the home of her mother’s mistress, Margaret Horniblow” (“Harriet Jacobs”). As stated by law, slaves are property, therefore distributed as so in the estate unless granted freedom by the owner. When Horniblow passed, Jacobs was sent to her niece, daughter of Dr. James Norcom (“Harriet Jacobs”). Soon after her move to the Norcom’s estate, Dr. Norcom began pursuing her. Along with the constant sexual harassment, Jacobs suffered the wrath of a jealous Mrs. Norcom. After attempting to escape the evils of Dr. Norcom by bearing two children to a white lawyer, Jacobs suffering only worsened due to the fact Dr. Norcom now had leverage over her. With her children’s lives in mind, “the thought that her children would be made plantation slaves and subjected to all of the brutality that implied convinced Jacobs that she had no choice but to escape her enslavement once and for all. In her absence the children would not be sent to the plantation” (“Harriet Jacobs”). In order to do so, Jacobs ran away and moved from hiding place to hiding place until settling in the attic crawlspace of her grandmothers shed for the first seven years of her escapement. Once she made it to the free North, Jacobs was reunited with her beloved children (“Harriet

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Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent) was born a slave, although up until the tender age of six she had not known such a thing because know one ever treated her as such. Linda learned to read, write and sew under her first mistress whom was very kind to her growing up. At the age of twelve Linda's first mistress died and willed her to Dr. Flint which would later cause much suffering and pain throughout her life. Linda was subjected to sexual harassment as well as physical abuse from Dr. Flint during her time as his servant. She was later temporarily able to ward off his advances by having an affair with Mr. Sands in which she had two children from him.

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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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At the age of five, she witnessed the atrocity of a male slave being whipped to death. This monstrosity can be seen in the picture of a slave’s scarred back; seeing this, one can only imagine how it affected Sarah. Only three years later, the slave girl her father had assigned “constant companion,” suddenly died. Sarah was compelled to lobby for equal rights for women because of her lack of education as a young woman. She dreamed of continuing her education, but this was denied to her by her father because she was a woman.

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Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth are women who face adversity categorized in an invisible sub-group, making it difficult for black women to compete in the world. This sub-group is known as intersectionality. Black women struggle with the perception being inferior placing them at the bottom of the social class. Jacobs and Truth, however, share their experiences to other men and women allowing them to be aware of this invisible group. They willingly chose to speak out against this discrimination.

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After having read both Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s Incident 1. How were Douglass and Jacobs similar and different in their complaints against slavery? What accounts for these differences? In both the inspiring narratives of Narrative in the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass’s and in Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs the respective authors demonstrate the horrors and disparity of slavery in there own ways.

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Harriet Jacobs wrote about her experiences with slavery not to gain sympathy for her suffering, but to raise awareness towards the women of the North about the horrible conditions for slaves in the South. At the beginning stages of her life, Harriet is brought up in decent conditions making her unaware of her status as a slave. When her mother dies, she harshly finds out that she is a slave. Dr. Flint plays a crucial role in her life in a negative way. He believes that Harriet is entitled to him in a sexual manner because he is her master. After seven years of hiding in a cellar, Harriet is able to make her way up North but despite her escape, Dr. Flint keeps up his persistence to find her.

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In the novel titled, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs, wanted to write about her experiences as a slave and how she managed to escape from slavery. This novel can be entitled to many themes, but the theme that touched me the most was about all the slave women and how they were treated. I think that Jacobs emphasized how for slave women the situation was the worst because they were always viewed as sex objects. I believe that Harriet Jacobs thought that women were expected to obey their masters all the time and had so much responsibilities to do. Jacobs gave reference to all of this by providing her life events; for example when Dr. Flint told her, “you deserve it… to be under such treatment… forget the meaning of the word peace.”

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In the history of the United States, slavery was and is considered one of the most inexcusable tragedies. Fortunately many slaves wrote about their experience in slavery, some authors known more than others but the stories are still the same. This will be an analysis of the lives of Harriet Jacobs, known as “Linda Brent” and the more known Fredrick Douglass, about their work as slaves and how their gender influenced their experience .

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Upon the death of her generous mistress, Harriet Jacobs was later relocated into her mistress’ niece’s house. Since the mistress’ niece was only five years old, Jacobs became the property of the young girl’s

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In Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs narrative they show how the institution of slavery dehumanizes an individual both physically and emotionally. In Jacobs narrative she talks about how women had it worse than men did in slavery. While men suffered, women had it worse due to sexual abuse. The emotional, physical, and sexual abuse was dehumanizing for anyone.

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Harriet Jacobs, referred to in the book as Linda Brent, was a strong, caring, Native American mother of two children Benny and Ellen. She wrote a book about her life as a slave and how she earned freedom for herself and her family. Throughout her book she also reveals countless examples of the limitations slavery can have on a mother. Her novel, also provides the readers a great amount of examples of how motherhood has been corrupted by slavery.

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Harriet Ann Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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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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2053 Words | 9 Pages

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1409 Words | 6 Pages

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl In the narrative, “Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Harriet Jacobs, who pseudonym as Linda Brent, details her life as a young slave girl growing up in the South, and her 27 years of experience in bondage. Jacobs, born the daughter of both, mother and father of slaves, until the passing of her mother, was shielded from the fate that would lead her, and younger brother, William to the home of Dr. and Mrs. Flint, master and older mistress. While in Flint’s home, Jacobs become one of many slaves subjected to abuse, rage, jealousy and the kind offers of their masters. Jacobs goes on to mother children, Benny and Ellen, by a colored free-man, who attempts to marry and purchase her, and the children.

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