In the story” The incidents in the life of a slave girl” (ILSG)which was written by Harriet Jacobs implies that masters, and slaves are victims, in addition neither of them are to blame for what society institutionalized, not just one individual whites discrimination for blacks; which is rape, extreme labor, whipping and other violence in the act of slavery. As sectional tensions within the U.S. escalated toward civil war, African slavery became an increasingly important point of focus for literary texts of the antebellum period such as ILSG; underlining the violence and decrepitude experienced by slaves within the South. Slave journalists had visions of loyal and happy slaves who were contingent upon their owners for their own well-being and protection ("Slavery, Violence, and Exploitation in 19th-Century U.S. Literature | OER Commons"). Slaves are well-defined as being people who are bound in vassalage as the property of a person or household ("slave"). Slavery was trained all over the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and African-American slaves facilitated in building the economic foundations of the new nation. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 solidified the central importance of slavery to the South's economy. By the mid-19th century, America's westward expansion, along with a growing abolition movement in the North, would provoke a great debate over slavery that would tear the nation apart in the bloody American Civil War (1861-65) ("Slavery"). A victim is a person who is embittered or tricked by someone else ("Victim - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary"). Victims of slavery are induced into slave-like corruption through deception, force or coercion. The enslaved are subjec... ... middle of paper ... ...were obligated to fulfill. The main purpose for Harriet Jacobs writing ILSG is to attack the specific role that slavery has played on African American lifestyles, also how the institutionalization of slavery permits a degrading behavior that has a negative impact on all African Americans. The special effects of slavery are due to the fact that when slaves were eventually freed they were not given any reintegration or help to be accustomed into the mainstream of society. Americans should be unbiased and stop placing the blame of slavery on whites themselves. Placing the blame on a particular group is not the answer because technically we are all American's. Americans just want to have a better understanding of each other and have some logical and rational dialogue even though slavery is really unjust, consequently, the fragments of slavery has several verges to view.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
Slavery in the middle of the 19th century was well known by every American in the country, but despite the acknowledgment of slavery the average citizen did not realize the severity of the lifestyle of the slave before slave narratives began to arise. In Incidents in the life of a slave girl, Harriet Jacobs uses an explicit tone to argue the general life of slave compared to a free person, as well as the hardships one endured on one’s path to freedom. Jacobs fought hard in order to expand the abolitionist movement with her narrative. She was able to draw in the readers by elements of slave culture that helped the slaves endure the hardships like religion and leisure and the middle class ideals of the women being “submissive, past, domestic,
The U.S. slave system has placed African American women at a disadvantage for hundreds of years. It's atrocious to think this kind of thing could ever be allowed to happen. Even worse is to the reality that it wouldn't be that way if people truly believed in equality. Women were owned in every aspect, not merely free labor. Their minds, bodies, and souls were pushed to the limits and Harriet Jacobs is an example of this being true.
In the earliest part of Harriet?s life the whole idea of slavery was foreign to her. As all little girls she was born with a mind that only told her place in the world was that of a little girl. She had no capacity to understand the hardships that she inherited. She explains how her, ?heart was as free from care as that of any free-born white child.?(Jacobs p. 7) She explains this blissful ignorance by not understanding that she was condemned at birth to a life of the worst kind oppression. Even at six when she first became familiar with the realization that people regarded her as a slave, Harriet could not conceptualize the weight of what this meant. She say?s that her circumstances as slave girl were unusua...
“I asked why the curse of slavery was permitted to exist, and why I had been so persecuted and wronged from youth upward.” Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery and knew from the start that it was wrong. You can only imagine what exactly men and women’s experiences were while going through life as a slave. “If you have never been a slave, you cannot imagine the acute sensation of suffering at my heart.” Jacobs details the abuses of slavery, and the struggles slaves went through. She often referred to slavery as the demon, a curse, or as venomous similar to that of a snake. Many slaves wished death upon themselves and even their children instead of continuing on with their life as being a slave. Slaves went through extremely harsh conditions and were abused not only physically but also mentally. Even through all the tragedies, slaves stayed strong and stuck together and did everything they could to assert their power and gain freedom or to help someone else gain it. “There are no bonds so strong as those which are formed by suffering together.”
Harriet Jacobs author of “Incidents of a Slave Girl” depicted the life of a women enslaved to white planation owners between the years 1819-1842. Harriet Jacobs escaped for enslavement and went on to become a pivotal figure for the African American culture with tales of cruelty from her owners and her need for freedom. Jacobs penned her story to persuade white people in the North to fight against the maltreatment of African Americans in the South. Jacobs highlighted for abolitionist and non-abolitionist alike the abuse slaves felt for many years and the obstacles they went through to secure their freedom. Harriet Jacobs asserted, “Slavery is bad for men, but it is far more terrible for women.” In contrast to Jacobs, slavery for women did not exceed or fall below that of men. The circumstances in which the different genders were treated did show some variations, however, the effects of slavery affected both men and women equally. Slave men and women all had one common goal and that was to enjoy the freedoms and rights as human beings amongst the Caucasian counterparts. Erik Foner, author of Give me Liberty! An American History, stated, “Black sought to make white Americans understand slavery as a concrete reality—the denial of all the essential elements of freedom—not merely as a metaphor for the loss of political self-determination.” African American fought collectively with both men and women against oppression from Caucasians.
Educating the North of the dismay of slavery through the use of literature was one strategy that led to the questioning, and ultimately, the destruction of slavery. Therefore, Harriet Jacobs’s narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is very effective in using various tactics in order to get women in the North to pay attention and question the horrifying conditions in the South. By acknowledging that not all slaveholders were inhumane, explaining the horrific abuse and punishments slaves endured, and comparing the manner in which whites and slaves spent their holidays, Jacobs’s narrative serves its purpose of arousing Northern women to take notice of the appalling conditions tons of Southern
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
Slavery was a horrible institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It wasn't less severe, but it was different. The sexual abuse, child bearing, and child care responsibilities affected the females's pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, demonstrates the different role that women slaves had and the struggles that were caused from having to cope with sexual abuse.
Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass are both very incredible and powerful writers who narrated their enslavement encounters in a passionate and compelling manner. Jacob’s narrative describes the abuses she had to go through personally especially because of her gender. She describes how the women slaves were exploited not only for their productive capabilities but reproductive ones as well. This is why she remarked, “Slavery is terrible for men but is far more terrible for women”. This is a clear indication that in addition to being enslaved, Jacob’s had to overcome the hurdle of being a female as well.
In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves at every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery: even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn. The irony exposed in Jacobs’ writings serves to show
In Harriett Jacobs’s book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she informs her readers of her life as a slave girl growing up in southern America. By doing this she hides her identity and is referred to as Linda Brent which she had a motive for her secrecy? In the beginning of her life she is sheltered as a child by her loving mistress where she lived a free blissful life. However after her mistress dies she is not freed from the bondage of slaver but given to her mistress sister and this is where Jacobs’s happiness dissolved. In her story, she reveals that slavery is terrible for men but, is more so dreadful for women. In addition woman bore being raped by their masters, as well as their children begin sold into slavery. All of this experience
...e that chattel slavery was a cruel, perverse institution that no human should ever have to endure. Most people realize today how hypocritical it was to call oneself a Christian, while treating slaves so horribly. Throughout her book, Harriet Jacobs, in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, revealed Americans everywhere that slave owners were hypocrites, and calling themselves Christians was perhaps the greatest sin of all.
As female slaves such as Harriet Jacob continually were fighting to protect their self respect, and purity. Harriet Jacob in her narrative, the readers get an understanding of she was trying to rebel against her aggressive master, who sexually harassed her at young age. She wasn’t protected by the law, and the slaveholders did as they pleased and were left unpunished. Jacobs knew that the social group,who were“the white women”, would see her not as a virtuous woman but hypersexual. She states “I wanted to keep myself pure, - and I tried hard to preserve my self-respect, but I was struggling alone in the grasp of the demon slavery.” (Harriet 290)The majority of the white women seemed to criticize her, but failed to understand her conditions and she did not have the free will. She simply did not have that freedom of choice. It was the institution of slavery that failed to recognize her and give her the basic freedoms of individual rights and basic protection. Harriet Jacobs was determined to reveal to the white Americans the sexual exploitations that female slaves constantly fa...
Motherhood, in its simplest definition is the state of being a mother; however, it isn't as clear cut and emotionless as the definition implies. Motherhood holds a different meaning for everyone. For some it is a positive experience, for others it's negative. Different situations change motherhood and the family unit. Slavery is an institution that twists those ideas into something hardly recognizable. The Master and the Mistress are parental figures. Slaves never became adults; they are called boy or girl no matter what their age. They are forced into a situation where biological parents have no say over their children. The slave owners control the slaves' lives and destroy the traditional idea of motherhood and family. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl deals with the issues of being a woman in slavery. The mothers throughout the narrative are powerless in keeping their children from harm. They watch as their children are hurt or sold and can't do anything about it. The mothers use everything in their power to protect their children and succeed in their motherly duty.