The Narrative Of Frederick Douglass Incidents By Harriet Jacobs

Was slavery "far more terrible for women"(Jacobs, 1)? Jacobs answers this question in her story and movingly demonstrates how women carried the sadness of being forcibly taken from their children., in addition to the everyday horrors and brutalities endured by enslaved men. To make their pain and humiliation worse, the enslaved women were often used as "breeders," and forced to bear children to add to their master's stock, but were not allowed to take care of them. Sadly, it was not unusual for the master to rape his female slaves and force them to bear his children. As it is pointed out in the book, children from these incidents were frequently sold to protect the honor and dignity of the slaveholder's wife. When describing the financial

Harriet Jacobs took a great risk writing her life as a house servant in the south and a fugitive in the north. Her story confronts the issues of female slavery, sexual abuse and rape from a woman's perspective. For example, Douglass focuses on the quest for the ability to read and free speech, while Jacobs focuses on the rights of women to protect their families and raise their children without interference from a "master". And although Douglass' narrative revolves around the fight for freedom of a sole individual, Jacobs' describes the struggle for freedom of a woman who is supported by her family and community. Without a doubt, Jacobs presents a unquestionably feminist view of

Aunt Martha is devout in the every sense of the word. The strict religious devotion gains and continually keeps "Linda's" loyalty, respect, love and fear. As a free black woman, she owns her own home and supports herself by selling baked goods to her neighbors- black and white alike- making it a symbol of her domesticity. The reader assumes Aunt Martha is pure and kind and that her strong religious beliefs would not allow her to get involved in a premarital love affair. The only quality that "Linda's" grandmother seems to lack to be a "true woman" is submissiveness. Even thought she lacks this quality, she still counsels "Linda" to be submissive to her master and to accept the life she has to live. Jacobs tells of an incident where her grandmother chased a white man out of her house with a loaded gun because he propositioned her daughter which highlights the lack of submissiveness and an extreme veer from the ideal and excludes Aunt Martha from True Womanhood. In the eyes of society and their standards, this is an inexcusable defect, but Jacobs thinks it is the quality that should be appreciated the