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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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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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However, by getting herself pregnant by a white man of her choosing, she was able to escape Dr. Flint. Jacobs refused to submit to her master’s rape, making a choice demonstrating her self-determination: Harriet writes, “It seems less degrading to give one’s self then to submit to compulsion” (X.291). Thinking of her children’s freedom, Jacobs escaped the home of Flint, hiding in a crawl space above a storeroom in her grandmother’s house for seven years. Harriet took the fate of her children in her own hands, hoping her escape would prompt Dr. Flint to sell her children to their father. Finally making it to New York, Jacobs spent 10 years as a fugitive slave on the move.

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