Incidents in the Life Of A Slave Girl
CHAPTER I
The conditions of this master–slave relationship are that the slave (Linda) is there to do work for her mistress, or master, which is now her sister' s daughter. Linda is supposed to take care her new owner's five year old daughter, help plant things, take care of any animals and anything else she is told. As a slave, she should also do everything else she is told by her master.
"After a brief period of suspense, the will of my mistress was read, and we learned that she had bequeathed me to her sister's daughter, a child of five years old." I think that before her former master died and she was sent to her master's sister's daughter, the conditions...show more content... I feel that this is very offensive treatment because that is not a justified reason to do something, as severe as choking someone. Even though she was one of his slaves, instead of doing that, he could have just told her, or even yelled, to cook something different–she would have gotten the point. I guess Dr. Flint, just like many other whites, felt he had to use violence to punish her (even though I totally, strongly, disagree with his decision, it was probably a "regular" thing to do during that time period. She being a slave, was probably used to it.
Chapter V
Linda shows her strong moral character in many ways. When she was a young girl, and pre–teen, she was offered many of the same things that the mistress's children were offered. Even though she thought this as only fair, she still offered her help to the members of the family in return for their kindness. Linda also knew that people were to be treated with respect. When Dr. Flint, repeatedly called her bitter names, and abused her, deep down she knew it wasn't right, and felt he was corrupting her and her pure mind, but chose not to say anything for fear of her serious consequences, even death. She just keeps going on with her life, helping him and his family, deep down inside knowing what he was doing was unjust and cruel.
CHAPTER VIII
I think that it was very ignorant of the slaveholders to
Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl
No one in today's society can even come close to the heartache, torment, anguish, and complete misery suffered by women in slavery. Many women endured this agony their entire lives, there only joy being there children and families, who were torn away from them and sold, never to be seen or heard from again. Thesis
In the book, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, Linda Brent tells a spectacular story of her twenty years spent in slavery with her master Dr. Flint, and her jealous Mistress. She speaks of her trials and triumphs as well as the harms done to other slaves. She takes you on the inside of slavery and shows you the Hell on Earth slavery really was. She tells you the love and...show more content... . .(The woman screamed) Gone! All gone! Why don't God kill me?" Linda explains that things like this happen daily, even hourly. This is only a small piece of the torture it was to be a woman in slavery. Linda's master often made perverted comments to her in which she expressed as to filthy to tell. He began to fill her mind with awful thoughts and words. He often slapped Linda and kicked her around. He was constantly threatening her and her life explaining that he would never sell her and that she would be in their damily as long as he had an heir. When Linda became pregnant with the son of a white man, he became very angry and he constantly reminded her that her baby was to be his property, like a piece of land to be bought. When she had the boy she named Benjamin, he was premature and she became very ill. She refused to let anyone send for a doctor, because the only doctor that could treat her was Dr. Flint. Finally when they thought she would die they sent for her master. He treated her and she refused him as much as possible, but she lived and so did her little Benny, although sometimes she wished he would've died. Almost three years later she had a daughter who she called Ellen which angered him even more and when Benny began to run to cling to his mother when he was striking her, Dr. Flint knocked the child all the way across the room nearly killing him. Linda finally escaped and hid at various places, in
The feminist movement sought to gain rights for women. Many feminist during the early nineteenth century fought for the abolition of slavery around the world. The slave narrative became a powerful feminist tool in the nineteenth century. Black and white women are fictionalized and objectified in the slave narrative. White women are idealized as pure, angelic, and chaste while black woman are idealized as exotic and contained an uncontrollable, savage sexuality. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl, brought the sexual oppression of captive black women into the public and political arena.
<br>Harriet Jacobs takes a great risk writing her trials as a house servant in the south and a fugitive in the north. Incidents in...show more content... Her rational powers and will to action facilitate her efforts to find strategies for dealing with sexual harassment from her master, for maintaining family unity, and in establishing a moral code in harmony with her beliefs and situation. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs' primary ordeal is the persistent sexual harassment and obsessive pursuit by Dr. Flint. Instead of bowing to what appears to be the inescapable sexual regression by Flint, Jacobs devises a plan of action that helps her maintain dignity, self–hood, and family unity. Jacobs took on another white man, Sawyer, as a lover because she knew it was inevitable that she would bear a white man's child. Since Flint denied Jacobs a marriage to a free black man and refused to sell her to anyone, Jacobs knew that she would never be allowed a traditional home and family. By choosing Sawyer as a lover and father to her children, Jacobs went against the ideal image of womanhood and showed independence. Making this choice meant that Jacobs willingly gave up her virginity outside of marriage. An action that is completely against traditional moral codes in her time. Jacobs exhibits the integrity of a survivalists. She thinks and speaks for herself, devises a plan and acts on it, all the while keeping in mind family unity and protection for her children. While attempting to embrace the ideals of womanhood, Jacobs is able to
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Harriet Jacobs wanted to tell her story, but knew she lacked the skills to write the story herself. She had learned to read while young and enslaved, but, at the time of her escape to the North in 1842, she was not a proficient writer. She worked at it, though, in part by writing letters that were published by the New York Tribune, and with the help of her friend, Amy Post. Her writing skills improved, and by 1858, she had finished the manuscript of her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. L. Maria Child, a prominent white abolitionist, agreed to edit Jacob's book, although she apparently did little to alter the text except to rearrange some sections, suggest the removal of one chapter, and add material to another. In a letter...show more content...
After both her mother, Delilah, and father, Elijah, died during Jacobs's youth, their maternal grandmother, Molly Horniblow, raised her and her younger brother, John. Jacobs learned to read, write, and sew under her first mistress, Margaret Horniblow, and hoped to be freed by her. However, when Jacobs was eleven years old, her mistress died and willed her to Dr. James Norcom, a binding decision that initiated a lifetime of suffering and hardship for Jacobs. Dr. Norcom represented later as Dr. Flint in Jacobs's narrative, sexually harassed and physically abused the teenaged Jacobs as long as she was a servant in his household. Jacobs warded off his advances by entering into an affair with a prominent white lawyer named Samuel Treadwell Sawyer and bearing him two children: Joseph (b. 1829) and Louisa Matilda (c. 1833–1913), who legally belonged to Norcom. Fearing Norcom's persistent sexual threats and hoping that he might relinquish his hold on her children; Jacobs hid herself in the storeroom crawlspace at her grandmother's house from 1835 until 1842. During those seven years Jacobs could do little more than sit up in the cramped space. She read, sewed, and watched over her children from a chink in the roof, waiting for an opportunity to escape to the North. Jacobs was finally able to make her way to New York City by boat in 1842 and was eventually reunited with her children there. Even in New York, however, Jacobs was at the mercy of the Get more content