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

This deeply moving, first-hand account of Slavery during the 19th century, gives the reader an invaluable, in-depth look at the horrifying treatment of African-Americans slaves and the true ugliness that will always mark the country’s beginnings. Written by Harriet Jacobs under the pseudonym Linda Brent, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl depicts what is was like to grow up not only a slave but a female, as well, and her grueling fight to free herself and her children.

The average life of a slave could depend very greatly upon whose possession they were in. Some slave owners, though few, were considerably more compassionate and humane in their treatment of their slaves like her dead mother’s mistress who owned Harriet until she was twelve years old. The mistress taught Jacobs to read and write, which was a very rare thing for slaves to know how to do and would be crucial later for Jacobs to write her own story, but she still betrays Jacob in the end by not giving her freedom and leaving her to the Flint family upon her death. More commonly, however, the life of a slave was a horrid and bleak

Narratives written by slaves like Harriet Jacobs were trying to disprove this absurd claim as well as depict just how horrible and inhumane slaves got treated to white Americans. Jacob’s account was, in fact, published the same year the American Civil War began. Considering slavery was a central issue in the war and the myth spread about slaves being happy, it was very noble of her to even include the few accounts of white southerners being compassionate and humane. She could have easily omitted these rare examples of human kindness in her attempt to try to further promote the freedom of all African-Americans, but Jacobs kept her full integrity and was truthful in her account, unlike her earlier