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

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Empathy Between the Slave and Slaveholder’s Wife It’s common to learn about slavery through the perspective of a slave, but not through the eyes of a slaveholder’s wife. Fanny Kemble married a slave owner and moves to the South from Britain and is shocked by the conditions that slaves faced. In her journal she wrote about the traumatic imagery of slavery. Harriet Jacobs also shares her experiences as a slave in her narrative. Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Fanny Kemble’s Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 each show how slavery affects more people than just the slaves, but through the perspective of a slave (Jacobs) and through the perspective of a slaveholder’s wife (Kemble). Jacobs’s narrative …show more content…
Flint, the slaveholder wife, while Mr. Flint tries to pursue Linda. Jacobs identifies herself as being “the object of her jealousy, and, consequently, of her hatred; and I knew I could not expect kindness or confidence from under the circumstances I which I was placed. I could not blame her. Slaveholders’ wives feel as other women would under similar circumstances” (42). This is an example of how Jacobs feels empathy for Mrs. Flint even though she is being rude to her. Jacobs is able to put herself into Mrs. Flint’s shoes and feels empathy because they are both women who have experienced similar situations. This tells the reader that Jacobs has experienced something similar to what Mrs. Flint is going through. Jennifer Larson comments on this situation in her article “Converting Passive Womanhood to Active Sisterhood,” “The narrative paints the slave mistress’s submissiveness, the refusal to intervene on behalf of the slave girl, as sisterhood lost” (743). Mrs. Flint is acting as the submissive wife. She never stands up to her husband for his actions; instead she takes her anger out on Linda. Mrs. Flint can help both her marriage and Linda by stopping her husband from trying to engage with Linda sexually, but due to the lack of power women had at the time, she doesn’t bother. This in the end ruins any sense of sisterhood that is shared amongst women like Larson

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