Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Ann Jacobs

883 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: harriet jacobs incidents in the life of a slave girl

Incidents In The Life of A Slave Girl
Alisha Dudeck

Overview: Incidents in the life of a slave girl is written about herself, Harriet Ann Jacobs. She shares her story on her life and how slavery impacted her. Jacobs tells her story in chronological order and discusses the main problems with slavery. The points she made about the issues with slavery were based on the fact that they had no rights, were sold as property, and were beaten and forced into labor.

Purpose: According to the author, the main purpose of this book is to inform readers about slavery and what it was like to live as a slave. She shared many of her sad experiences such as her struggles with her master and his treatment, along with her struggles in getting both her and her kids free. Throughout the story she spoke directly to her audience and referred to us as …show more content…

She definitely proved her thesis on the mistreatment and harsh penalties of slaves. She tells he traumatic story, starting from when she was a kid up until she gained freedom around 50 years old. Jacob’s most convincing topics were her issues with her master, gaining freedom, and keeping her children. Jacobs describes her issues and fears with her master, “The doctor came to see me the next day, and my heart bet quicker as he entered. I never had seen the old man tread with so majestic a step. He seated himself and looked at me with withering scorn. My children learned to be afraid of him”(p.109). She describes her challenges in becoming free, and keeping he children with her. She discusses her plans on gaining this freedom with her plan of attack by moving north and having her family help get her kids there with her. This novel was written in a way that catches the reader’s attention and makes the story easier and more exciting to read. She took a hard subject and turned it into a motivating and suspenseful

Show More
Related

  • Slavery and the Life of Harriet Jacobs

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet, and Yellin, Jean. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

    Read More

  • Lifting as We Climb

    3002 Words  | 7 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Books, 1987. 333-513.

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Mentor, 1987.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    In her story Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs presents what life was like living as a female slave during the 19th century. Born into slavery, she exhibits, to people living in the North who thought slaves were treated fairly and well, how living as a slave, especially as a female slave during that time, was a heinous and horrible experience. Perhaps even harder than it was if one had been a male slave, as female slaves had to deal with issues, such as unwanted sexual attention, sexual victimization and for some the suffering of being separated from their children. Harriet Jacobs shows that despite all of the hardship that she struggled with, having a cause to fight for, that is trying to get your children a better life

    Read More

  • Analysis of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

    576 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1861, Harriet Jacobs published her book “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” The story is based in Southern United States of America during the time before Jacob escaped from slavery in 1835 (Reilly 649). Jacobs uses the name Linda Brent as a pseudonym (Reilly 649) and describes her experience as a female slave through a first person narration. The purpose of the selections featured in Kevin Reilly's, “Worlds of History,” is to show the victimization and emotional suffering female slaves feel against their white masters vs. the physical pain a male slave endures.

    Read More

  • The Unique Experience of Women Slaves

    1348 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. 2nd Edition. Edited by Pine T. Joslyn. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, INC., 2001.

    Read More

  • The Narrative Of Frederick Douglass

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slave narratives were one of the first forms of African- American literature. The narratives were written with the intent to inform those who weren’t aware of the hardships of slavery about how badly slaves were being treated. The people who wrote these narratives experienced slavery first hand, and wanted to elicit the help of abolitionists to bring an end to it. Most slave narratives were not widely publicized and often got overlooked as the years went by; however, some were highly regarded and paved the way for many writers of African descent today.

    Read More

  • What Is Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl?

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Summary Of Harriett Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

    1910 Words  | 4 Pages

    On hearing this news “So vanished our hopes” (Jacobs 226). These hopes were hopes of freedom from slavery. She was now owned by Dr. and Mrs. Flints property and as the ended into their new homes they were greeted by cold looks, cold word and worse treatment. This is where Jacobs’s faith of life is going to change and the choices she made while going through her rough times. By this time her father had died as well this caused Jacob’s to rebel against God because he had taken away her mother, father mistress, and friend. But her grandmother was always there to comfort her as best as she can. Not only was she sad but she became miserable to the treatment slaves suffered on her new plantation. Little attention was paid to slave’s meal, also if the meals were not served at an exact time on a particular Sunday she would wait till it was served and spit in the kittle pans, and the slaves could get nothing more except what she choose to give them, these were the ways of her Mrs. Flint. As for Dr. Flint he made his cook tremble because if the food was not to his liking he would have her whipped or make her eat it by cramming it down her throat till she choked. As well as he would make her eat the dogs mush because the dog had not eaten it and Dr. Flint claimed it to be uncooked. “This poor woman endured many cruelties from her master and mistress; sometimes she

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs Incidents And A Slave Girl: An Analysis

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Slavery In The Souls Of Black Folk By Harriet Jacobs

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    Analyzing the narrative of Harriet Jacobs through the lens of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du bois provides an insight into two periods of 19th century American history--the peak of slavery in the South and Reconstruction--and how the former influenced the attitudes present in the latter. The Reconstruction period features Negro men and women desperately trying to distance themselves from a past of brutal hardships that tainted their souls and livelihoods. W.E.B. Du bois addresses the black man 's hesitating, powerless, and self-deprecating nature and the narrative of Harriet Jacobs demonstrates that the institution of slavery was instrumental in fostering this attitude.

    Read More

  • The Trial Of Girlhood And A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl's Life Analysis

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, women were considered property and slave holders treated them as they pleased. We come to understand that there was no law that gave protection to female slaves. Harriet Jacob’s narrative shows the true face of how slaveholders treated young female slave. The female slaves were sexually exploited which damaged them physically and psychologically. Furthermore it details how the slave holder violated the most sacred commandment of nature by corrupting the self respect and virtue of the female slave. Harriet Jacob writes this narrative not to ask for pity or to be sympathized but rather to show the white people to be aware of how female slaves constantly faced sexual exploitation which damaged their body and soul.

    Read More

  • Slavery and Christianity in Harriet A. Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

    1695 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself. 1861. Ed.

    Read More

  • Slavery Is Terrible For Women, By Harriet A. Jacobs

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women." Why was slavery "far more terrible for women"? In Harriet A. Jacobs’s memoir, she shows people the additional horrors and brutalities that an enslaved men went through, but enslaved women were often used as “breeders”. The enslaved women went through further horrors than men, they had to bore pain and degradation.

    Read More

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

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Ann Jacobs

Open Document