Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was written in 1860 by Harriet Jacobs who goes by the name Linda. She is happy for the first six years of her life when she finds out that she gets to be abused because of being the slave. There are many events which describe the horrible life and suffering which Harriet goes through because of her race such as not getting enough food, being abused by a man much older than her, killings of people and selling the children of slaves in order to get the money.
Harriet’s life is described from the time when she is a slave until the time when she gets her freedom because her friends who are white buy her. All of the incidents provoke rage and they make the book a magnificent testimony. This story is the first one that a woman slave wrote and published which adds the gender issues to the problem of slavery. The struggles which women went through are well depicted in this narrative. All of this happened because of the slavery and because of the fact that Harriette was a girl. Linda was trying to get away from Dr. Flint’s harassment which she was disgusted by. She dedicated her story to white women from the North who were into purity and chastity. There is much difference between female and male slaves because female ones do not get religious education and their slavery is sexual as well. They are deprived of humanity and of being feminine and having the rights which support them and their causes. The fact that Linda wrote about rape and sexual assaults made quite a negative impact on the society of that day.
After one century it was recognized that this story was not fiction and that is was written by Jacobs. She was a brave woman who escaped and wrote a piece of work which stood the test of time. This book is hard to read because of the heinous things that a human mind is capable of conceiving. Slavery is regarded as the horrible past which can never be forgotten because it helped shape the culture in the U.S. This is also a story about friendship because Harriette finally gets her freedom because of the help of her friends who are white.
Slavery made many people rich and that is why it was hard for people who were against it to abolish it. The path to abolishment was hard, but successful and Harriette’s story is the proof of female courage and power when there is also determination involved. Jacobs also speaks in the name of the people who never got freedom and who died as slaves.
Harriette had a tough time with Dr. Flint because of his savage methods of treating slaves, especially the female ones. “When he told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his, never before had my puny arm felt half so strong” (Jacobs 29). At this point Harriette realizes that she is a human being who should not be treated as an object and that she should fight back. All of these situations gave her the courage to fight back and to find her freedom in the outside world where she was protected from slavery.
When she was the object of Mrs. Flint’s hatred she understood her because of the fact that she was a woman. “I could not blame her. Slaveholders' wives feel as other women would under similar circumstances” (Jacobs 53). Women understand one another which is why a female slave could put herself in the position of the landlady. This story is about the strength that women have as well as about their endurance. Harriette’s story is her legacy to the world which makes people aware of all the horrors that innocent women had to go through just because of their race and gender. This is a testimony of one generation and one culture and the future generations should read it in order to understand history.
Works Cited
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Boston: The Clerk's Office of the Dictrict Court of the District of Massachusetts, 1860. Print.
