Although she did not receive any physical punishment by her master, she lived in a tight-knit community and was aware of the conditions of other slaves who received brutal punishments. For example, Jacobs notes that “every where men, women, and children were whipped till the blood stood in puddles at their feet.” (page 56). Female slaves lived in fear that they would be raped by their masters. Jacobs’ master, Dr. Flint, often made relentless sexual advances at her, and justified his behavior by saying that she was “made for his use.”
People usually draw an outline before they write the final essay. The outline is used to organize their thoughts and claim their thesis statement. Even the final essay is written based on the outline, it is much more complicated than the outline. Writers spend lots of time modifying every sentence they write to make the final essay looks better. In my view, people have the same perspectives in both tradition and reconstruction period.
The extreme cruelty experienced by the victims of the South’s “peculiar institution” in Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, reflect the inhumanity of the time period’s slave owners and the impact they had on their slaves both physically and mentally. Harriet’s transfer to the Flint’s household offers several examples of the malice the owners hold in quick succession. The Flint’s have their own ways of treating the cooks, both callous. Mrs. Flint spits into the pots and pans, rendering any food left within them .
In Incidents In the Life of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Harriet shares her experience in slavery and how she overcame trials presented in the form of her master and mistress, and how she battled constant separation from her family and children. In order to protect herself from her master, who constantly attempts to pressure Harriet into a sexual relationship with him, Harriet becomes involved in a relationship with a white man and gains two children. However, in order to escape slavery, Harriet stays for seven years in a small shed in her grandmother’s home and eventually gains her freedom. The book shows that in a system of slavery, family ties and the idea of motherhood are two things that are almost unachievable due to the uncertainty
The book Incidents in the life of a slave girl written by herself, Harriet Jacobs, we follow her life as a slave in North Carolina during the Antebellum period of the United States before the Civil War. This book describes Harriet’s life as a slave in detail, something we would not usually get from a book around this time. Some important insights we get from this book are, instability of life, difficulty to escape slavery, family life, and the struggles of female slaves. Harriet Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. The first child of Delilah Horniblow and Elijah Jacobs.
In today’s world, we learn about the harsh lives that slaves had to endure and how mistreated they were their entire lives. It’s often hard to imagine what it would have been like and how they coped with their terrible lives. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs discuss how they were able to find hope and comfort through the toughest of times. Through the harsh reality of slavery, slaves had the comfort of family, friends, and God to give them hope to one day have freedom. Family was a large comfort and a little bit of an incentive for slaves who were fortunate enough to have their family near them.
Carlos Lopez Mrs. Wilson/ Mr. Velasco AP Language and Composition 08/07/17 “Incidents in the life of a slave girl” Study guide 1)Linda's grandmother shames Dr. Flint by obtaining her freedom when Dr. Flint stated that he would deny her promise of being fre. 2) She states this because the free women have no idea of what the slaves have to go through on a new year compared to the free women.
This relative, Dr. Flint made sexual advances toward Jacobs leading her to have an affair with a neighbor whom she preferred. This oppression from her master lead to her children and they ended up being the most positive thing in her life. Jacobs had to hide in an attic to stay with her children instead of running to freedom. Douglass’s worst master just brutalized him and caused him to fight his master taking power from him and it caused him to lose his humanity. This fight between Douglass and his master Covey Douglass says was the “turning point in my career as a slave” and it lead to a better life for Douglass (2207).
Harriet Jacobs wrote about her experiences with slavery not to gain sympathy for her suffering, but to raise awareness towards the women of the North about the horrible conditions for slaves in the South. At the beginning stages of her life, Harriet is brought up in decent conditions making her unaware of her status as a slave. When her mother dies, she harshly finds out that she is a slave. Dr. Flint plays a crucial role in her life in a negative way. He believes that Harriet is entitled to him in a sexual manner because he is her master. After seven years of hiding in a cellar, Harriet is able to make her way up North but despite her escape, Dr. Flint keeps up his persistence to find her.
Incidents in the life of a slave girl is an autobiography by a youthful mother and criminal slave distributed in 1861 by L. Maria Child, who altered the book for its writer, Harriet Ann Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs role in regards to the African American history is to teach and inform. Jacob's book is tended to white ladies in the North who don't completely grasp the wrongs of bondage. She makes direct speaks to their mankind to extend their insight and impact their musings about slavery as a foundation. In her biography she said “I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what slavery really is.
XVIII. Months of Peril. " Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Dover, Mineola, New York ., 2001, p. 83.). The fact that Linda can’t see what bit her is very intriguing.
In this kind of master-slave relationship, rape was unavoidable. Linda suffered a lot from this. She felt shamed, guilty and fearful, but she couldn't do anything to resist the sexual abuse of the master. She was not the only poor girl, because she knew that Dr. Flint was the father of eleven slaves, which means that he raped over eleven slaves.
In the excerpt from the Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass describes the inhuman life for the enslaved people on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. First, Douglass mentions that those enslaved are given the very minimum amount of resources. In addition, Douglass states that the enslaved were given two shirts, one pair of trousers, one jacket, one pair of stockings and one pair of shoes, these they have to wear for a year until the next allowance day. For children who can no longer wear their clothes were naked until the next allowance day. Second, the enslaved were lack of food, their monthly allowance of food contained eight pounds of pork or fish, and one bushel of corn meal.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs is a story about a young slave named Linda and her personal experience trying to escape alive. Linda is a brilliant black slave that is constantly tormented mentally and physically by her master, Dr. Flint. For the sake of Linda’s two young children she had with a white man out of wedlock, Linda decides to escape until she or her children are bought by close friends or family, so that they may never experience the tribulations of slavery. While the South tried to convince northerners that the master-slave relationship was a good one, Jacobs goes on to convincingly prove that is not the case.
She talks about how she was treated by Dr. Flint " But Dr. Flint swore he would kill me, if I was not as silent as the grave." Although in Jacobs narrative she was treated, in Douglass' his grandmother was whipped "The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped the longest." He also talks about how bad women had it "He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome, would he cease to swing the blood-clooted cowskin." Then he talks about how slavery was like hell "It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass."
