Pat ReganApril 15, 1999Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a autobiography on the life of Harriet Jacobs. In these opening chapters Harriet depicts some of the terrible things that she endured as a slave in the south. These short chapters stress the wrongs that slavery inflicted on slaves in every day life. Harriet Jacobs begins her writing by stating that it is “no fiction”. These are all events that really occurred which she lived through and experienced. She then states that“I wish I were more competent to the task that I have undertaken. But I trust that my readers will excuse deficiencies in consideration of circumstances.” She is a black woman and a former slave. Her goal in writing this text is to tell the truths of slavery from her point of view.In this text Harriet Jacobs refers to herself by the name of Linda Brent. Linda Brent is telling the story of her life and her accounts of slavery. She states that she was born in slavery and remained a slave for 27 years. She was more privileged then the average slave. She was unaware that she was a slave until the age of 6 when her mother died. She was on good terms with her mistress because Linda’s mother was a childhood friend to her.
Linda was taught by her to read and write. Even after her mistress died and she was sold to Dr. Flint, she still got better than average treatment. She got protection from Dr. flint who never let anyone whip her. Although Linda Brent got better than average treatment for a slave, she was still a slave and she still had a very hard life. She often refers to the readers throughout her text. She targets the whites and northerners as an audience for her writing. She says she does so to inform them of the conditions of her slavery and to let them know that there are many still in slavery that endure worse than she did. By writing this text she arouses sympathy from northerners for the wrongs that slavery inflicts and for the people that still existed in slavery at the time at which she wrote this text. The period of Linda Brent’s life that is depicted in these chapters was a very difficult life for a person. She was incessantly troubled by something. Her mother died when she was very young. At this point in her life she finds out that she is a slave owned by her mistress. Then her mistress and dear friend dies and she is sold into slavery when she thinks that she may be given her freedom. She is split up from some of her siblings. Then her father dies. After feuding with his master, Benjamin flees to the north for his freedom. Toward the end of the text she is denied marriage to the father of her child by her master, Dr. Flint. All of these things that she has had to live through. She was someones property for 27 years of her life.
The Essay on Frederick Douglass: Slave Life and His Constitution Views
Throughout reading “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, one does not simply learn and discover the everyday average slave life style, Douglass incorporates his own mental philosophies as to how slavery and society is ran during that time by telling it from his own first person prospective, and he also uncovers the evils that slavery hides. Slaves during the antebellum of the ...
