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The Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl Analysis

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Harriet Jacobs was a freeborn African American woman, who wrote a narrative called, The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She was the first woman author to write a slave narrative. She is an African American writer who escaped from slavery. Being a slave in the South was probably the most horrific event that men and women had to go through. In her novel she introduces herself as a young child, who is six years old. In her novel The Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs discusses many important themes in this novel. In the novel, The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs discusses the importance of family and childhood, the safety of her life and, exposes the sexual abuse and exploitation of female slave in the South during this time period.
One of the themes that Harriet Jacobs addresses in her narrative is the importance of her family and the effect they had on her as a child. Her family provides love, compassion and assistance in escaping from slavery. In the beginning of her novel she describes her family as a normal family. She felt …show more content…

The way African American female slaves were treated the way Harriet Jacobs describes in her novel is they were property. Her master would whisper foul words into her ears. (Gates, 231) Harriet Jacobs and other female slaves were looked upon as sexual objects that existed for their masters. Her master stalked her and her master made her a little home for to live in. Harriet Jacobs discusses how women at this time were subjected to rape and were forced to bare children with their masters. Many young girls and women, Harriet discusses were taunted and insulted. Harriet Jacobs was not allowed to marry the person she wanted to marry instead she was forced to be with her master and treated very cruel until she got pregnant from another white

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Her family’s abolitionists beliefs and activity in the “ Underground Railroad” directed her to where she was in 1852 when she wrote a novel telling the stories of three slaves that would split the country into controversy. Uncle Tom’s Cabin told the stories of Uncle Tom, Eliza, and George. In her book Harriet displayed the struggles of runaway slaves and the troubles black slaves had to face everyday with slavery. In only two weeks it’s popularity had grew and it became the outbreak of the nation.

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Harriet A. Jacobs was born a slave in North Carolina in 1813 and became a fugitive in the 1830s. She recorded her triumphant struggle for freedom in an autobiography that was published pseudonymously in 1861. As Linda Brent, the book 's heroine and narrator, Jacobs recounts the history of her family: a remarkable grandmother who hid her from her master for seven years: a brother who escaped and spoke out for abolition; her two children, whom she rescued and sent north. She recalls the degradation of slavery and the special sexual oppression she found as a slave woman: the master who was determined to make her his concubine. With Frederick Douglass 's account of his life, it is one of the two archetypes in the genre of the slave

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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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Sexual abuse of all black women by wealthy white men was just as prevalent during emancipation as it was during slavery. The sexual abuse the enslaved black women received by their wealthy white male masters, was justified by white men and women due to the Jezebel myth they had created. Deborah Gray White defines the Jezebel myth in her reading, “Jezebel and Mammy”, when she states, "[The Jezebel] did not lead men and children to God; piety was foreign to her. She saw no advantage in prudery, indeed domesticity paled in importance before matters of the flesh” (Gray White 29). The thought of the black woman as hypersexual, allowed white men and women of all classes to sexually and racially oppress the black women, declaring them "unladylike”, not maternal figures and not sexually pure like the white women.

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Mary Rowlandson and Harriet Jacobs narratives Mary Rowlandson and Harriet Jacobs narration of their hard experience during captivity and slavery played a very significant role in revealing much about the conditions of women during that time. As most of the critics believe that telling a story from the point view of an oppressed group as women in a male dominant society, will guarantee a new framework of resistance and will break the typical image of women as being submissive and Marginalized. Moreover, these two writers, through their narration were able to endure all the difficulties and the hardships as loosing freedom and the sexual abuse, to seek the rights of all other women, and to fight for the elimination of both slavery and captivity. Harriet Jacobs in her narration of “Incidents in the life of a slave girl written by herself” decided to take the risk and to narrate her own experience as being slave and oppressed by the white system abuse. Although she is not the only one who wrote about slavery and its condition, but as William Andrews said “"Many of the ugly truths of the black woman's condition in slavery had been widely publicized

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Sally Hemings was a slave on the Monticello plantation in the late 18th century, and her experience helps us to understand that her gender aided the way she was treated versus if they went by the color of her skin (Dilkes Mullins). {Woman during this era were thought of as property, they were objectified, they were treated poorly and had no choice. Their husbands were liable for anything that they did} [Being a female during this era outweighed what one 's social status was. It did not matter what race you were, but if you were a woman, you were treated as such] (Dilkes Mullins). Ms. Hemings was a beautiful sixteen-year-old enslaved girl (Gordon-Reed, 102) who was more than just a slave on the Monticello plantation.

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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.

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Sojourner Truth was a woman who believed strongly about human rights and spoke blatantly about the importance of women’s rights. In doing so, she traveled the world to tell the truth about the importance of women’s equality rights, hence her name Sojourner Truth. She sacrifices family time to travel from place to place making sure everyone is aware of women’s inequality. Harriet Jacobs, on the other hand, sacrifices differently. As a child, she underwent the exposure of oppression and prejudice.

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" The author tells how sad is the life of a slave girl and how, as soon as she is old enough, and against her will, she would learn about the malice of the world. Meanwhile, male slaves rarely suffered from such abuse, and different from women, slavery mostly affected their manliness. As Douglas says while describing one of the oversees: "It was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk. " By saying so, he proved how, at a very patriarchal time, male slaves completely lost the bravery and "superiority" often used to describe white men.

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Bringing light on the experiences and life of being a woman, specifically an African-American woman in a man-run society. Incidents and the life of a slave girl, Cask of Amontillado and The Help demonstrate the heart ache of wanting revenge on aggressors who wrongfully mistreat others and effectively show how the stories of Incidents and the life of a slave girl and Cask of Amontillado inspire the modern story of The Help. Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl, an autobiography. A retelling of Harriet Jacob’s heartbreaking story about her life. Using the pseudonym Linda Brent, she in her early years had a considerably happy life with her family.

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Harriet Jacobs was an African American woman who wrote incidents in the life of a slave girl in order to discuss her experiences in slavery as a woman. She wanted to unveil the truth about the life of a slave and share her knowledge among white southerners and northerners of slavery. As a slave woman and a runaway, Harriet Jacobs had suffered emotionally, physically, and mentally in the institution of slavery. However, she had suffered far more psychological abuse than physical abuse due to her life as a slave, sexual harassment from her slave master, and the constant fear of being found as a runaway. All these experiences led to the truth of what slavery really was.

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In Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs narrative they show how the institution of slavery dehumanizes an individual both physically and emotionally. In Jacobs narrative she talks about how women had it worse than men did in slavery. While men suffered, women had it worse due to sexual abuse. The emotional, physical, and sexual abuse was dehumanizing for anyone.

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Harriet Jacobs, referred to in the book as Linda Brent, was a strong, caring, Native American mother of two children Benny and Ellen. She wrote a book about her life as a slave and how she earned freedom for herself and her family. Throughout her book she also reveals countless examples of the limitations slavery can have on a mother. Her novel, also provides the readers a great amount of examples of how motherhood has been corrupted by slavery.

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Harriet Ann Jacobs is the first Afro-American female writer to publish the detailed autobiography about the slavery, freedom and family ties. Jacobs used the pseudonym Linda Brent to keep the identity in secret. In the narrative, Jacobs appears as a strong and independent woman, who is not afraid to fight for her rights. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published in 1961, but was unveiled almost 10 years later due to the different slave narrative structure. Frequently, the slave narratives were written by men where they fight against the slavery through literacy by showing their education.

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl opens with an introduction in which the writer, Harriet Jacobs, expresses her purposes behind composing her life account. Like all other slaves, her life story was story was horrific and shocking enough that she would have rather kept it private, however she felt that making it open may help the abolitionist development and will probably make others aware that what all of them went through. An introduction by abolitionist Lydia Maria Child puts forth a comparative defense for the book and she thus keeps the story of Jacobs’ in front of the world. In the book, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, the author as by the pen name of Linda Brent tells her story of twenty years spent in slavery with her master Dr. Flint, and her

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