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Summary Of From Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

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The experience of slavery is very different for men and women. In the writing From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs we learn about her personal story. She explains that she shared her experience for a special reason, she explains the reasoning as: “But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is” (Jacobs, 846-847). The main focus of her story is the sexual abuse her slave owner put her through. Unfortunately, most female slaves were hopeless …show more content…

You’re probably wondering, why would Harriet think her master would care for the children she created with him? Perhaps that was her hope that she would be treated with more respect. and dignity. The idea of a father not caring for their offspring no matter what circumstances is not shocking to me. During this time period women took care of their children not the fathers. According to The Slave Experience: Men, Women, & Gender by Jennifer Hallam (2004), “They put their responsibilities for their children before their own safety and freedom, provided for children not their own, and gave love even to those babies born from violence” (Hallam, 2). Jacobs portrays her motherly bravery later in her life story. In order to provide a better lifestyle for her children she decided to run away from slavery. For seven years she went into hiding at her free grandmother's house. Harriet hid inside the attic for years hiding from her master. Similar to Douglass, Harriet was brave enough to risk her lives for the improvement of others lives. The bravery of a mother during slavery is incredible, it takes a lot of courage to know that if you get caught by …show more content…

Most slaves believed in God and to think that they couldn’t even understand the Bible all because they were denied an education is mournful. It’s also very inspiring that throughout all of the degrading events that slaves went through they always had their faith with God. Although the first slaves to come into the United States had their own religious beliefs, while living their lives in America many of them converted to christianity. According to The Slave Experience: Religion (2004) by Kimberly Sambol-Tosco, “For instance, fugitive slaves from South Carolina, headed for Florida, where the Spanish Crown promised them freedom as a reward for conversion” (Sambol-Tosco,

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Mary Rowlandson and Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl share is that both were written not as a journal but as a means to paint a picture of their enslavement. Rowlandson “wrote for her surviving children” (Gilbert and Gubar 175) and in turn illustrated the power and mercy of God. And Jacobs wrote for her “sisters who [were] still [suffering] in bondage” (Jacobs 620). In the beginning of Rowlandson’s and Jacobs’ books the oppressors are painted as “merciless enemies” (Rowlandson 175) and as a “hoary-headed miscreant” (Jacobs 624).

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Jacobs later began “to contribute her life story to the abolitionist cause in a way that would capture the attention of Northern white women in particular, to show how slavery debased and demoralized woman” (Baym, 921). Jacobs wrote an autobiography on her life as a slave little girl. In her book she described the kind of treatment African

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The novel, Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, is a powerful novel of a slave girl who would do anything for the freedom of herself and her two children. Jacobs wrote this novel to bring awareness of slavery to Northerner especially to women. Jacobs used the pen name Linda Brent to compiled her lives as a slave to bring and show the reality of slavery; the cruelty, the physical violence, the separation of families, the sexual relationship between master and slave, the psychological abuse, the danger of escaping from bondage.

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Many slaves ran away because of enduring physical and mental abuse. Since there were very few laws to protect slaves, they were often mistreated. In the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs tells her true story of what she encountered during slavery. She tells of how after her Mistress died she was inherited by her late mistress’s niece. Since the niece was only five years old, Jacobs Master was the father of the little girl.

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Ever since the whole situation with Her losing her Grandma, Harriet begins showing maturity and a more decided opinion on whites. “The influences of slavery had had the same effect on me that they had on other young girls; they had made me prematurely knowing, concerning the evil ways of the world.” (Jacob, pg. 51). The influence and effects that her childhood had left on her has definitely shaped up her side on the battle of oppression between the Whites and African Americans.

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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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