...Discovering Truth in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl _________________________ Melissa McGowen English 601 December 2013 Melissa McGowen Barish Ali English 601 December 2013 Discovering Truth in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Publication and Critical Reception: The autobiographical text, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl suffered a difficult road in becoming published. The text suffered an even larger feat in becoming recognized for its worth. Because it took many years for the author, now revealed as Harriet Jacobs, to be properly identified, the work had been dismissed as fictional. Jacobs’ decision to remain anonymous came from guilt and disgrace over the way she was treated while enslaved and the actions she was forced to take to become free, particularly those pertaining to sexual acts. Wanting to be viewed as a “proper Christian” she decided to create the pseudonym name Linda Brent. It was under this name the text was published. In later years, her text has been viewed as an important text, speaking truth to the ears of sentimental novel readers in the north, and calling for action against the cruel institution of slavery. Employed as a teacher by Pace University in 1968, Jean Fagan Yellin wrote and published her dissertation. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of the project and to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the...
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...This biography of Harriet Jacobs from a website titled, Documenting the American South, is mainly about Jacobs’ slavery life, how her famous book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, came about, and what the main purpose of the novel was. This article contained a couple terms that were confusing to understand. For example, the terms were; unassailably, clandestine, liaison, obscurity, and expatriate. The definition of unassailably is that someone is unable to be attacked, questioned, or defeated. Clandestine means when something or someone is kept a secret or done in secret. The term liaison indicates a certain communication or cooperation that facilitates a close relationship with people or organizations. Obscurity is when something is unknown or unimportant. This term can also be defined as the quality of being difficult to understand or something is unclear and not understandable. Lastly, expatriate means someone that lives outside their...
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...Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Jacobs, Harriet Mroz, Jessica March 23, 2011 Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Barnes & Noble, Inc. 2005). In her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs is a slave that was born into slavery in 1813 that has decided to share her amazing story of slavery and her struggles to become free. When she was young her parents were “property” of a really nice lady that allowed her family to have a very comfortable life for a slave family. They were allowed to work for their own money and Harriet did not know that she was a slave for until she was twelve. When she was seven her master died and left her to her sister’s daughter who was five years old. She believed that it was not right to treat blacks in the way that whites did and that someone should not have to purchase themselves or their children. She believed that the whites were way too cruel. She eventually escaped to the north and eventually had someone purchase her freedom for her. The female slaves seemed to have the most difficulties while in slavery. Harriet Jacobs says “My master met at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him” (35). I interpreted this as a grown man trying to get a 12 year old girl to have sexual relations with him. I know that this was common in the years of the slavery but it was really not a good thing. I feel that it is disgusting...
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...the significance of slavery in the United States’ history. Many Black women and men in America suffered misery of slavery through their entire lives especially by their slave owners. Most African Americans people were sent to the United States and were underprivileged from the freedoms, joy of family life, ability to make own choices, and even from the basic human rights. In order to evaluate the American system of slavery this paper will analyze and compare two primary sources, Thomas Jefferson's, “ Note on the State of Virginia”, and "The Trials of Girlhood and The Jealous Mistress" in “Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl,” by Harriet Ann Jacobs. While Thomas Jefferson proposes his idea to emancipate freed African American slavery, he was willing to reconsider the relationship between slaves and their owners. Harriet presents real situation of degraded relationships between white and slaves in her early slave life. However, both two disagree that slavery in the United States would divide human races into even more conflicts with social, cultural, economic, and political impacts. In “Note on the state of Virginia,” Jefferson discussed his proposal for the emancipation and removal of Virginia's slaves. In his not he explained why freeing black slaveries could not remain longer in the future. Jefferson argued that “deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real...
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... For slaves, there was almost no time for happiness. A writer that describes all that he/she had to go through during his/hers life time, explains every single detail because they remember what they felt at that moment, how it felt, the smell, the light, the thoughts, everything. Slaves suffered too much, until they said “enough”. As black slaves, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs have a lot of common because of the symbolism they used, the theme of how they describe slavery, and the literacy scene in how they did something everyone thought was impossible. For both, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, the symbolism of the word “slave” had a deeper meaning than just a word. In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave” is written, “The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, change to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon” (Douglass). In this quote, Douglass is describing how the person who bought him for slave changed from being a good person to becoming a demon. The power that corrupts this person which in the story is Mrs. Auld makes her become a bad person by wanting to have control over the slave. This is one example of the symbolism of how Douglass used the transformation of a good person to bad by owning a slave. In “Incidents...
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...Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by Harriet Jacobs was written between 1853-1858 and published in 1861 covers many aspects of her life. Jacobs recounts her childhood and young adulthood as a slave; her escape from the persecution of her lascivious master Dr. James Norcom (renamed Dr. Flint in the book); years of hiding in a small space in her grandmother's shed; her travels to the north and her residence there; and her eventual freedom. The main purpose of Incidents in Life of a Slave Girl is to give the reader information about her situations with slavery. She is informing the reader of things that has happened to her and her family during the 1850’s, which is also in the slave era. Jacobs states many issues about slavery, corruption, religion and how family is important. Some of the most important parts of the book tell how Jacobs and her family lived during this time period. “Reader, I draw no imaginary pictures of southern homes. I am telling you the plain truth. Yet when victims make their escape from the wild beast of Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of...
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...Huihui Zong Ally Day Women’s Studies 367.01 2/13/2011 Sexuality for Slave Girls In the book, “ Incidents in the life of a salve girl” (Jacobs, 1861), the writer Harriet Jacobs presents how a slave girl, Linda Brent, who mirrors Jacobs’s real experience, being suffered under the control and threaten of his master and how she escapes from the captors and finally gets free. The main character, Linda Brent, who is a slave girl working for Dr Flint’s daughter, is an epitome of the resistant black women. Having a master like Dr Flint, who threatens Linda constantly with violence and humiliating words, Linda shows intelligence and endurance to escape being further offended by Dr Flint. After Linda has children with Mr Sands who appears to be truly cares for Linda, Linda is threatened by Dr Flint again by being offered to buy her children’s freedom if Linda agree to live with him as his mistress. Linda refuses him and begins to plan her escape from that time. Linda has spent seven years hiding in her grandmother's attic and this exhibit her extraordinary psychological and spiritual strength. During the seven years, to elude her captors, she has moved several times to different cities within the help by some kind white people. Linda manages not only to survive but also to transcend seemingly insurmountable barriers, showing the difficulty for slave to live, especially women slave. Although some male authors of slave narratives had mentioned that African American women had been enslaved...
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...been heard. You yearn to be free; away from the slave system. Those scars you hold don’t defy you. This is how many slaves felt, this is a story we hear but do not listen too. This is a challenge of freedom. This is their story. First it started out with a piece a paper. This paper was there only to advertise for auctions, it stated slaves names and their backgrounds. This paper, these auctions would determine if you’d be with family or not. Often times they’d be captured by slave traders, free, or not. They were not viewed as human but as property; things. They would stand there bear for the people to claim them. Who could do such a thing? All this determined the slave’s job,work conditions, and punishments. Secondly, their jobs; some would work inside the house, some would work outside the house. If you worked out side you usually had bad living conditions, and cheap, coarse clothing. Some would work skilled jobs such as carpentry or as a blacksmith. Some worked as drivers, people who watch over the other salves and are in charge of their punishments. Often times the slaves...
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...The writings from the slave perspective offer a sobering view of the day to day execution of the peculiar institution compared to that of pro-slavery writings. All of the arguments presented by men such as Fitzhugh and Furman simply disappear when put under the scrutiny of women like Sally Thomas and Harriet Jacobs. It would seem that an experience that would contradict one of the apparent goals of slavery, to free the black from worry about things like wages and rent, was had by Harriet Jacobs. Jacobs told of her cruel master who would make unwelcome sexual advances and her inability to tell anyone caused a great amount of mental anguish. This example directly contradicts that the slave-owners where simple carers who provided for their slaves...
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...African American Slave In the United States during the period when slavery was the accepted form of labor for the ruling class─that consisted of mainly white men and their families─there were many atrocities that took place at the hands of these white masters. We now have access to a plethora of primary and secondary sources that documented the many forms of torture that slaves had to endure. Many of the best examples of evidence come from primary sources such as slave narratives that were written by the slaves themselves. Some of the most well known examples of slave narratives were written by Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Henry “Box” Brown, who escaped from slavery by being enclosed in a box three feet long and two feet wide. Harriet Jacobs’ narrative has been studied by scholars over the many years since its publication and has been criticized for its apparently deliberate omission of any sexual abuse that Harriet Jacobs herself had likely endured. There are many instances from historical documents that explain─in detail─the horrific atmosphere of the United States during slavery, as well as the mindset of most white slave owners during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many texts describe the sexual abuse of female slaves by their white masters as well as the resulting pregnancies that inevitably occurred. In other texts, there have been documented cases of sodomy by white male slave masters to their black male slaves. In addition to the sexual abuse of slaves, they had to...
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...life of the slave Cora, and her pursuit for freedom and complete liberation from slavery within the south during the 1800s. For the duration of the story, the changing concept of freedom is depicted through the adversity and difficult decisions Cora has to make to chase freedom. Throughout the novel, Colson Whitehead...
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...influenced by his persona as a slave working under the adverse supervision of Epps. The memoir had been derived from his perspective as a slave; thus, revealing his response towards key issues that perpetuated throughout the novel. Northup was able to explore the fundamental issue of the role of female slaves during the post-colonial period in America, specifically the sexual exploitation of female slaves. Northup’s persona towards the dire treatment of black female slaves is that of extreme animosity and disgust. His stance against female marginalisation was presented through the use of stylistic features; namely, the inherent employment of figurative language when discussing...
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...African American Women Under Slavery This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era. Slave Trade For most women who endured it, the experience of the Slave Trade was one of being outnumbered by men. Roughly one African woman was carried across the Atlantic for every two men. The captains of slave ships were usually instructed to buy as high a proportion of men as they could, because men could be sold for more in the Americas. Women thus arrived in the American colonies as a minority. For some reason, women did not stay a minority. Slave records found that most plantations, even during the period of the slave trade, there were relatively equal numbers of men and women. Slaveholders showed little interest in women as mothers. Their willingness to pay more for men than women, despite the fact than children born to enslaved women would also be the slaveowners’ property and would thus increase their wealth. Women who did have children, therefore, always struggled with the impossible conflict...
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...torture, teasing and killing. It has been a controversial issue in world societies for many years and has caused many disagreements as well as violent conflicts toward against many different social and ethnic groups throughout history. One of the most well-known periods of time when a specific group of people were discriminated was the time of slavery. Africans were stolen from their homelands by Europeans around the early 1500s and were sent in America in a process that is known as the Triangular Trade. The triangular trade is journey between Africa, Europe and America. It was a pattern of colonial commerce in which slaves were bought on the African Gold Coast with New England rum and then traded in the West Indies for sugar or molasses. (Stump, LaVault, and Murray). Slaves were not considered as “human” because of physical feature like skin color. As Harriet Jacobs noted, “Slavery is terrible for men;...
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...references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American Odyssey (Upper Saddle River: Printice-Hall, Inc., 2000). Other general texts not to be overlooked are Colin A. Palmer’s Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America Vol. I: 1619-1863 and Vol. II (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), which emphasizes culture; and, Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black...
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