Slave Girl Religion

Influence of Institution of Religion

To many people, religion is one the most important things. Iit gives them hope when they are in depressing moments in their life and it keeps them optimistic, but it does not always affect people positively. In the narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; by Harriet Jacobs, writing as Linda Brent, the institution of religion influence Linda both positively and negatively depending on who is using religion in the novel. Linda uses religion as an outlet for joy and hope in her life, but she uses it so much because she grew up in an institution made up of slaves looking for something to help them survive. At other times, though, the events occurring around her were too much and her personal faith backs

When the slaves were not able to be with her children or other family, religion was the only place she could turn to because that is what the institution around was based off of. Near the end of chapter 5, Linda was talking about white woman from the north and how their lives differed so much from those of the slaves. She goes on to say, “There are noble men and women who plead for us, striving to help those who cannot help themselves. God bless them! God give them strength and courage to go on! God bless those, every where, who are laboring to advance the cause of humanity”(30). Linda is showing the hope she has for the future of the whole country. The only way the world could cease slavery was by encouraging those who could actually do something and believing in God to help them as well. Later on in the novel, Linda attends a Methodist class meeting and there they began to sing a hymn. In the hymn, it was mentioned how “Satan’s church is here below. Up to God’s free church I hope to go”(78). The slaves, including her saw the point of law was be the best they could so they go be free from slavery with God. This was their motivation that kept them hopeful and alive because all they really wanted was freedom and peace, which was very difficult to acquire for a slave. They wanted the suffering to end, but for that to happen they must continue through life

At times, she just wanted to be done with the world, but she could not. “‘My child, your father is dead.’ Dead! How could I believe it? He had died so suddenly I had not even heard that he was sick. I went home with my grandmother. My heart rebelled against God, who had taken from me mother, father, mistress, and friend”(6). This is one of the times when she doesn’t accept God and her religion and loses a bit of faith because the only things that were motivating her and keeping her happy were now gone. She wasn’t thinking about how their lives were better without slavery, but instead about how she has to fight against the cruelties occurring around her without the help of others. The only person she had left at this point were her siblings, which she loses some to slave trade and the person who “promised to be mother of her grandchildren”(6), her grandmother. Sometimes religion was used by others in a manner that should never be used, but they did to to get what they