Mary Prince Essay Examples

It is evident that Mary Prince account of slavery definitely dwells on the instances of sexual violation and how the character struggles to escape the traumatizing life in the slave masters and slave owners. For instance, in the Incidence of Life of a Slavery Girl, Harriet Jacobs portrays Linda to be the first one to encounter this experience. Having been brought up in a slave life, Linda was brought up in better part of her early days with her parents who were at that time a little better off compared to other families. Her mother, however, dies when she was six and she is forced to live at the mother’s mistress who happily enough treats her well and teach her how to read and write. It is unfortunate that the mistress dies too after short period forcing Linda to move and stay with the mistress’ relative. However, unlike her first host the new home is filled with cruelty and Linda is constantly forced into sexual relationship with the mistress relative, Dr. Flint. Linda however, fights hard to get rid of this behavior for several years an act that makes Dr. Flint to threaten Linda, a situation that Linda defies and makes her outwits him. Threatened with Dr. Flint and seeing the possibility of getting overpowered by him, Linda flees his ideas and gets into a love triangle with a white neighbor, Mr. Sands terming the situation to be as a result of being ashamed of getting into an illicit behavior with the lustful Dr. Flint. She even prefers being raped than getting into such behaviors.
In the History of Mary Prince by William Andrews, he begins the story with a brief history describing the her childhood before she was inducted into the adulthood before her adult experience characterized by of slavery in the region of West Indies where she was brought up. Mary Prince spends her youthful life with Captain Williams family and household, where she believes had become the best period of her life as she was too infant to understand exactly what was going on and the fact that she was a slave. Therefore everything, according to her seemed pretty normal despite some issues she might have undergone through. She is later sold into a new slave owner and that’s when she starts to understand the life and it dawns on her that she was a slave following the issues she undergoes through.
As an adult, Prince was exposed to different conditions including experiencing forced labor where she was involved in working as domestic servant and doing other manual hard work including but not working as a field laborer despite being physically consumed after a day’s work. Prince expects a better treatment but instead she is exposed to physical abuse and emotional trauma and sexual abuses despite hoping that changing the slave ownership would play to her best experience. She is not only sexually assaulted but also beaten and her skin broken and tormented emotionally in addition to the whooping and whipping she is exposed to.
In conclusion, the two books therefore explore in details the various accounts of slavery instances with the theme of sexual assault and violation and depravity coming out clear in both cases and more pronounced in Harriet Jacob’s case. Despite the women being much aware of the dangers they are being exposed to, it seems they have very little to control the situation and slavery seems to have impounded their physical, emotional and intellectual wellbeing. The details expressed have also shown an attempt by women to eliminate the situation in their life despite the incapability. This therefore shows that it was not a voluntary thing but was rather forced into these actions considering their frailty as women.