Introduction
It is important to note that the rise of abolitionism in the United States was the key driver of ending the inhumane practice of slavery. The given analysis will focus on Harriet Jacobs’s book titled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs illustrates and argues against slavery by highlighting its dehumanizing effects on children and their parents, stripping them of the fundamental bond and emotion of motherly love.
Harriet Jacobs’s Arguments
Before proceeding with specific examples of the argument, it is useful to provide a general discussion of Jacob’s key points. She essentially illustrates the wrong and unethical aspects of slavery as an insider by providing as much detailed and in-depth information as she can. She does not try to convince a reader by providing hypotheticals or abstract reasoning on why slavery is immoral, but rather demonstrates its real-life manifestations. The most heartbreaking and enraging element is not being a slave as an individual but rather as a mother, father, grandmother, and a slave’s child. These most valuable and sacred familial bonds become completely desecrated by practices of slavery, causing outrage in anyone who has a parent and a child.
Argument Examples from the Book
The first specific example comes at the beginning of Jacob’s book when she describes her childhood. She writes: “Sale was a terrible blow to my grandmother; but she was naturally hopeful, and she went to work with renewed energy, trusting in time to be able to purchase some of her children” (Jacobs 5). The analysis of the last phrase on purchasing back the children is used to show how disgraceful and degrading the impact of slavery is. The effect is profound on a grandmother who, in her old age, lives with the hope of being with her children. For the entirety of her life, she was denied the right to be a mother, and her biggest hope is not to return but to specifically ‘buy’ back her own children. The author does not even need to use abstract thinking or reason to demonstrate the inherent immorality of slavery.
The second specific example is provided from her perspective, being a mother under the slavery system. She writes: “In order to protect my children, it was necessary that I should own myself. I called myself free, and sometimes felt so, but I knew I was insecure” (Jacobs 34). The analysis of the statement reveals that there is a strong lingering effect even after slaves were emancipated. It shows how deep the impacts of the evils of slavery run, to the point where she has never felt safe and secure as a mother. Her motherly love and bond with her children, the most basic and valuable emotion for humanity, were always under the threat of being denied.
The third specific example comes from Jacobs when she informs the readers that despite the outrage, they will never truly understand it in its full horror. She writes: “the degradation, the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery are more than I can describe. They are greater than you would willingly believe” (Jacobs 10). The analysis indicates that this is the moment when the author essentially calls out slavery for what it truly is – a crime against humanity. Everything that humans and even animals value and live for, such as motherly love, is degraded, leaving something purely inhumane and evil, full of sin, vices, and degradation.
Conclusion
Jacobs concludes by showing how slavery degrades both parents and children by denying them the fundamental emotion of maternal love and connection, so proving and arguing that slavery is evil. There is no logical gymnastics or abstract intellectual acrobatics that can somehow stand and argue against the evidence presented by her. Her arguments against slavery are based on reality, visceral love, and fundamental human rights.
Work Cited
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2020.