Summary Of In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet A. Jacobs

The opening quotation from Incidents In The Life of A Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs: “Northerners know nothing at all about Slavery. They think it is perpetual bondage only. They have no conception of the depth of degradation involved in the word, SLAVERY; if they had, they would never cease their efforts until so horrible a system was overthrown” by a woman of north Carolina, which indicates the ignorance towards slavery, expresses that the book is not only about a slave girl, but also the whole women society has the same situation. Most importantly, Jacobs expects to emphasize that the book is not just about being a slave, and the Ignorance needs to change. The book In the Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl

For example, In the Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl, chapter twenty one “The Loophole of Retreat,” when Jacobs was hiding in her grandmother’s garret, she mentions that “I thus succeeded in making one hole about an inch long and an inch broad. I sat by it till late into the night, to enjoy the little whiff of air that floated in. In the morning I watched for my children. The first person I saw in the street was Dr. Flint.” Even though Jacobs is hiding in the garret, she does not give up finding a way to watch her children. Unfortunately, her children are being with Dr. Flint, but she cannot do anything to rescue her children. In “Drawing the Color Line” by Howard Zinn, Zinn states that “The blacks had been torn from their land and culture, forced into a situation where the heritage of language, dress, custom, family relation, was bit by bit obliterated except for remnants that blacks could hold on to by sheer, extraordinary persistence.” In this case, this scene illustrates the helplessness caused by the slavery because Jacobs is isolated away from her children. Jacobs felt upset about it when the children are being with her cruel master Dr. Flint. In the meanwhile, Jacobs got isolated from his family in the garret. She cannot do anything to rescue her children, but she just can sit,

In the Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl, chapter nine “Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders”, Jacobs claims that “he was a slave; and the feeling was that the master had a right to do what he pleased with his own property.” In this case, treating as an object, the slaves are insulted by their slave holder, and have to obey what their masters say. Obviously, they are not treated as a human being. In contrast, the slaves are treated as an object that they cannot do what they want to do. In addition, Jacobs mentions that “women are considered of no value, unless they continually increase their owner’s stock. They are put on a par with animal.” Cruelly, women are treated as animals under the system of slavery. Jacobs not only illustrates the male slaves that are treated as objects, but also emphasizes that women are in the worse situation. Even though male and female slaves are different genders, female slaves are treated more brutally because male slaves are treated as slave holders’ property, but female slaves are sometimes considered as no value, and treated as animals. In this case, Jacobs shows that the brutality of the slavery had prevailed in the womanhood