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

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This leads to the final section of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs: attaining her freedom. According to Christina Tilghman, there is a pattern of growth in “self-reliance and decision-making” in slave narratives (Tilghman, 4) which is most definitely found in this section of the novel. Jacobs planned the entire escape on her own, and worked hard to find a secure hiding place. She had to fight temptations of coming in contact with her grandmother, and put herself in danger in several different ways, including being permanently disabled by a poisonous reptile bite. She is moved to a new hiding place, and the Sands, the family that is hiding her, is able to buy her two children from a slave-trader. Jacobs then …show more content…

She had no fresh air or sunlight, and there were several rats, mice, and bugs that would bite her. In the summer she was burned by the sun, and during the winter, she was nearly frost bitten at all times. She became crippled from being in such a small place, and she admitted that if it were not for her children, she would have died. After a long time in the attic, it became uninhabitable, and she decided to travel north. Jacobs was extremely surprised by how nicely she was treated on her boat ride to Columbia, and she travels to New York to find her daughter. Though Mr. Sands had told Harriet that he freed her daughter, he was lying, because Jacobs soon found out that she was under ownership by a woman named Mrs. Hobbs. Harriet Jacobs finds a job in New York, and even in the north, she cannot escape Dr. Flint. He takes multiple trips in attempts of finding her, but fortunately, she was never found. Later on, she travels to England and realizes that racism only exists in the United States. She becomes open to God while she is in England, discovering that Christianity was only prejudiced in the states. By the end of the novel, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, which caused widespread panic among runaway slaves in the north, but Dr. Flint passed away, and Mrs. Bruce, the lady that Harriet was working for, was able to

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When reading Harriet Jacobs/Linda Brent’s autobiography addressing her life as a slave who grew up in the deep south and who later fled to the North, two important characters make an impact on her life. Like many people, Jacobs/Brent’s life actions are heavily impacted by the people and the atmosphere around her, driving her decisions, wants, and desires. Although Jacob/Brent’s grandmother makes an impact on her life, Dr. Flint makes a greater impact on her life. With his pushing, he helps determine whom she has children with, controls her life through the livelihood of her children, and even impacts her life after he has passed away through his surviving daughter and son-in-law.

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As a woman, Harriet Jacobs faced unique challenges in the slave society. She was forced to endure sexual abuse from her owner and struggled to protect her children from the same abuse. This experience is clear in her narrative, which focuses mainly on the sexual misuse of female slaves. She writes with passion, using her own experiences to gain the attention of free women in the North (Jacobs).

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

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In the autobiography, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Harriet Jacobs is able to tell her story and show the pain of bondage she endured. Jacobs lived from 1813-1897, and all she ever knew was the life of a slave. It is her story, even though she uses a pseudonym, Linda Brent, in order to protect her identity. Her real name is later discovered by scholars, and she is then given the credit for her writing. The book was published in 1861, after fleeing north to New York.

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Similar to Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was taken into slavery as a child not quite as young being so that she was around the age of seven when her mother died. She was sold twice, each time being so that her previous slave owners had died. Yet each time she was sold her owner had become worse to her. As she grew older her slave owners had become sexually assaulting her, consequently having two children. As she endured this pain, and torment she became craving her freedom more and

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Even if you happen to have master that wasn’t as cruel to you, you were still a prisoner. Running away wasn’t simply an act of rebellion of a slave who wanted to get out of a bad job, it was the act of escaping a terrible, wrongfully gained lifestyle. They were fleeing for their lives and the lives of those who were closest to them. Jacobs has a two children that she was trying to get back to and who she didn’t want to end up working out in the fields as she had to. Her children were mixed raced, or “mulatto” which was the term that was coined back then for people who were interracial, but not to digress.

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Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

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Harriet experience an internal match between wanting her child to live and wanting him to die so he’s not forced to experience the horror of slavery. As a slave mother, it’s impossible for Harriet to be able to protect her son because she’s considered as property. This is why she thinks in some ways it would be better for her children to die than rather experience the pain of slavery. Then, when her daughter, Ellen, is born, Harriet says, ““When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.

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She had a happy childhood not knowing she was a slave until she was 6, after he mother died. After her mother's death, Harriet becomes the slave of her mother's

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Summer Musser Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet A. Jacobs In the first chapter, Jacobs begins explaining how she was six years old and did know she was a slave. Her father was a carpenter and she had a brother named William. She was very fond of her maternal grandmother (Aunt Marthy).

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“Born into slavery to Elijah and Delilah Jacobs in 1813, Harriet Ann Jacobs grew up in Edenton, N.C., the daughter of slaves owned by different families. Her father was a skilled carpenter, whose earnings allowed Harriet and her brother, John, to live with their parents in a comfortable home. Her grandmother, Molly Horniblow, was a beloved adult in young Harriet’s life – a confidant who doled out encouraging advice along with bits of crackers and sweets for her grandchildren.” (Edenton). Harriet Jacobs wanted to preserve her plan to escape free.

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Despite the fact that they lost their mothers and realized their status as slaves at about the same age, Douglass’s and Jacobs’s feelings are very different. For instance, looking in the beginning of Jacobs’s autobiography, it is evident that she is filled with grief and sadness about losing her mother. She wrote, “I grieved for her, and my young mind was troubled with the thought who would now take care of me and my little brother” (Baym 923). After the death of her mother, Jacobs was attached to her grandmother, Aunt Marthy. For Jacobs, the relationship with her grandmother was a gift; her grandmother took over the mother’s role in her life.

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Harriet Jacobs recounts events in her life in her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl under the pseudonym Linda Brent. The autobiography shows her life as being born into slavery and experiencing hardships such as abusive and disloyal masters and mistresses and separation from her family. Despite being born into slavery, Linda is independent and strives to be autonomous. Her independence was caused from her parents refraining from telling her unfortunate circumstance of being born into slavery. Once she learns that she is a slave she had already developed a strong sense of autonomy and longs for a free life in the North with a family.

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Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

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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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