Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is a perfect sentimental narrative. Sentimental lecture became popular by women in the 1850s. Sentimental themes shown in Jacobs’s work include the sacred bonds, separation, love, death, heartbreak, sacrifice, and emotional feelings and sympathy throughout the narrative. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs writes an account of what slavery was like for her, a female slave.
At the beginning of the narrative Jacobs starts by revealing her happy innocent childhood of six years with her mother and father, unaware of the fact that she “was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them at any moment” (922). Unfortunately, her mother died and she was sent to live with a new master in her

Jacobs recalls later the chapter the values of her mistress. She writes, “slaves had no right to any family ties of their own; that they were created merely to wait upon the family of the mistress” (925). Due to Jacobs being a slave, she realizes that she will never be able to truly be the domestic and maternal figure she wishes to be. After Jacobs reveals this truth about slavery she then writes about the painful separation from her first lover due to slavery. Jacobs wrote that she fell in love with a free young colored carpenter who she has known since her innocent childhood. The carpenter offered to buy her freedom leaving Jacobs very excited about her new future. However, due to the down falls of slavery, Jacobs soon realizes that the “hateful man who claimed a right to rule me, body and soul” (925) would never allow her to leave him so easily. When Dr. Flint is confronted with this news he retaliates against Jacobs striking her for the first time. This leaves Jacobs seeing the true violence and oppression of slavery. She writes that, “ for [the free man’s] sake, I felt that I ought not to link his fate with my own unhappy destiny” (928). With this newfound knowledge Jacobs pleads for him to leave and to never come back. Throughout this chapter Jacobs showed what it was like for her, as a slave, to love and experience

Flints “wife vowed, by all that was good and great, she would kill [her] if [she] came back” (932). Jacobs she knew this to be true due to her mistress’s jealous tendencies of her. Jacobs has finally given birth to her first child but still feels humiliated about the reason. Jacobs writes, “ I shed bitter tears that I was no longer worthy of being respected by the good and pure” (932). Jacobs is remembering the “poisonous grasp’ of slavery has taken away her purity and Christian values. After her master threatens to take her child away Jacobs is reminded what it’s like for a mother and her slave children with no rights. Soon Jacobs is pregnant again and Dr. Flint becomes so enraged, “he cut every hair close to [her] head” and “he struck [her]” (932). This shows Dr. Flint taking away her of her feminine qualities and also her control. He wanted her to know that she is the slave and he is the master, that he has complete control over her. Jacobs soon finds out that her next child is a girl. Jacobs writes, “slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women” (933). Women have their purity, Christianity, bonds with their children, and domesticity that men do not have to worry about. Jacobs only wants what’s best for her child but by “the weight of slavery’s chain” that is simply impossible