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Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl Analysis

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Slavery was a hugely inhumane practice that affected many people and their families. Slave women were especially subjected to even more hardships than men, such as being raped more often. Although there are many slave accounts that have been published, unless you lived through it, it is hard to imagine what life as a slave was like. No person today can come close to understanding the amount of emotional pain and suffering caused by the heartache, despair, and complete and utter misery that Harriet Jacobs, or Linda Brent as she goes by in her memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, went through in her twenty years of slavery. Harriet was not the only woman to suffer; thousands of women were subjected to sexual advances and rape, all by their masters. African women lived on with the harsh treatment of the white man with the hope of freedom one day and to be with their families, but …show more content…

Harriet fell into the cruel and manipulative grasps of her new twelve-year-old master’s father, Dr. Flint. Dr. Flint began showing a great liking towards Harriet, but she did not have a say in the way that Dr. Flint treated her, and his reasoning was that she “was his property” and that “I must be subject to his will in all things” (Jacobs, 1861, p. 34). Again, the harder mistreatment towards women is apparent here. Many times, Dr. Flint threatened to kill Harriet if she went to the comfort of her free grandmother. This proves that Harriet had no say as to what happens to her. African women had no right to even say no to the master when he tells the women to do things not only in the work place, but also in their bedrooms. Women began to fear the sound of their master’s voice because they know that he is calling on them for a specific reason. Since they were slaves, and not free women, there was nothing they could do to get justice for what was happening to

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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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In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs tells of her experiences as a slave. She had to endure the hardships that came with both being black and a woman in 1861. As a slave she was supposed to serve and obey her master. As a woman she was supposed to be submissive to men. She describes several situations in her memoir that would make me oppose slavery if I were a Northern white woman in 1861.

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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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Carlos Lopez Mrs. Wilson/ Mr. Velasco AP Language and Composition 08/07/17 “Incidents in the life of a slave girl” Study guide 1)Linda's grandmother shames Dr. Flint by obtaining her freedom when Dr. Flint stated that he would deny her promise of being fre. 2) She states this because the free women have no idea of what the slaves have to go through on a new year compared to the free women.

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Slavery was maybe a standout amongst the most horrifying tragedies in the history.. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs were only two of the numerous slaves who write about their experiences as a salve. Each of the slaves had diverse encounters with slavery; however they all had one thing in like manner: they recount the abominable foundation of slavery and how enormously it influenced their lives. Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglas, both of whom were naturally introduced to slavery, portrayed their encounters in energetic, convincing accounts. As this short essay will illustrate, both imparted the vulnerabilities of the slave, the mistreatment gave out to these casualties of an unethical organization, and a feeling of being seen as sub-par

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Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass are two prominent figures in American literature who have given voice to the horrors of slavery and the struggle for freedom. They both experienced enslavement in the United States in the 19th century and used their writing to convey their experiences to the world. While both of them share similar experiences of oppression, their narratives differ in significant ways, particularly in terms of gender. This essay will explore the different ways in which gender influenced the experiences and writing styles of Jacobs and Douglass, and whether they experienced and pictured the same kind of freedom. Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass both experienced the brutalities of slavery, but their experiences were different in many ways due to their gender.

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When Harriet's mother was in her 50’s she was up for auction but she had gained a reputation in her community and no one made a bid for her. Her mistress’s sister had known Harriet's mother for 40+ years and bidded on the auction. She then granted Harriet's mom freedom. “She had lived forty years under the same roof with my grandmother; she knew how faithfully she had served her owners, and how cruelly she had been defrauded of her rights; and she resolved to protect her.”

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Many would like to think that sisterhood overpowered the separation of race and class, but from the journals of slave women it is evident that this was not always the case. Again, the lack of evidence and data relating to slave women results in historians and scholars having to presume a lot about what happened during this time. In Incidents in the life of a slave girl the mistress-slave dynamic is illustrated through Mrs. Flint’s disdain towards young slave girl Harriet. “I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.” (Jacobs 29)

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Harriet Jacobs experienced firsthand how slavery within the white household degrades the virtue and motherly instinct of white women. Throughout the 18th century, Jacobs is passed from owner to owner relearning their rules and regulations of the house. Jacobs knew nothing different, but noticed how her owners would slowly change and their caring humanitarian actions would start to diminish. Jacobs was not the only one who noticed her owners changing, the whole world began to take note of the dwindling virtue in all women. Harriet Jacobs experienced firsthand how slavery within the white household degrades the virtue white women by ridding them of compassion and altering their perception of what is right and wrong.

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In the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs recounts her years as a woman in slavery. Jacobs portrays the abuse many young and old woman received from their masters. Whether it would be sexual abuse or physical abuse. For Jacobs she was harassed and abused by her master for most of her young life. There were instances in the book where she stated how and when her master struck her.

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Slavery in America was considered to be one of the most devastating acts in history. African American people were torn from their homelands and sold at auction to the highest bidder. Men, women, and children were forced into slavery or born into it, experiencing harsh conditions such as abuse, neglect, and even death. This experience though did not always happen, some slaves were treated fairly and were never punished by their owner’s. Events such like this were recalled by two former slaves by the names of Aunt Harriet Smith and Charlie Smith.

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Abina and the Important Men uncovers the story of a young girl’s journey through years of enslavement at the hands of various men and her plea for justice. West African women in the nineteenth century faced a multitude of challenges including slavery, forced marriage, assault, and silencing. Unfortunately, their stories were rarely recorded, and if they were, they were seldom shared or believed. Patriarchal societies, such as the one Abina encountered, perpetuate the systemic oppression of women not only by white men, but by men of color and women themselves. Captured and sold into slavery as a young girl, Abina was forced to perform domestic labor and her masters often beat her.

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She talks about how she was treated by Dr. Flint " But Dr. Flint swore he would kill me, if I was not as silent as the grave." Although in Jacobs narrative she was treated, in Douglass' his grandmother was whipped "The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped the longest." He also talks about how bad women had it "He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome, would he cease to swing the blood-clooted cowskin." Then he talks about how slavery was like hell "It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass."

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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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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.

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