“Incident of the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs Report (Assessment)

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The narrative Incident of the Life of a Slave Girl depicts life troubles and hardships faced by a slave girl and her understanding of freedom and equality. This is a unique source that portrays life struggle and desire for freedom of an African-American woman. Harriet Jacobs demonstrates that slaves did resist being enslaved but they had no opportunities to escape from slavery. Acts of insubordination, such as running away, were motivated by the slave’s desire to be with their family, to escape from the violent treatment of an owner, and to run away permanently from his oppression. For Harriet Jacobs, freedom means real life and future hopes she was deprived of all her life.

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Psychologically, for Harriet Jacobs freedom means the absence of cohesion and oppression. The example of Harriet Jacobs shows that slaves were caught and returned to their owners but Harriet Jacobs tried to escape this destiny. The slave knew this, but the act itself, a compelling impulse to remove herself from the plantations forced upon her in bondage, could not be contained. Jacobs portrays that without property, and with prejudices against white men, slaves were vulnerable to kidnappers and traders who sought a profit in human lives. Even those who had acquired some land or property were not safe being picked up and jailed if they attempted to travel from one geographical region to another. Harriet Jacobs says that states prohibited their entrance on penalty of being sold. In other states slaves were easily picked up as runaway individuals. She writes: “I had been three weeks on the plantation when I planned a visit home. It must be at night, after everybody was in bed. I was six miles from town, and the road was very dreary. … I laid Benny back in his bed, and dried his tears by a promise to come again soon” (Jacobs, 2003). Even free people who acquired large fields, owned slaves, boasted white “protectors,” and accepted the credo of the slaveholding class were sometimes mistaken for slaves (Ernest 81).

Physically, for Harriet Jacobs freedom means absence of beating and handwork. Harriet Jacobs sought to maintain warm relations with other people who could vouch for them and they worked to fashion their society and family networks for black people’s protection. Similar to other slaves, Harriet Jacobs possessed similar personality traits. At this time, there was diversity, but most slaves demonstrated self-confidence, self-assurance, self-possession, strength of mind, and independence. They were resourceful, stubborn, focused, and firm. Some of them were quick-witted, crafty, and intelligent, while the majority were deceptive and calculating, and not a few were double-dealing and scheming when it came to dealing with white population. Possibly the most salient characteristic of the slave, was courage, in particular for those who ran away more than once despite cruel punishments. Very few among such slaves appeared curt, morose, or sullen. Thus, such personal views exposed their hate of bondage and made them, in their owner’s eyes, troublemakers and potential criminals. Linda writes: “My grandmother could not avoid seeing things which excited her suspicions. She was uneasy about me, and tried various ways to buy me; but the never-changing answer was always repeated: “Linda does not belong to me.” (Jacobs, 2003). For this reason, escape from slavery means to Linda personal freedom and real life in contrast to mere existence in slavery.

Jacobs’ problem does not concern adulthood notion but touches the issues of self-sacrifice and subjugation of women. The trouble is that Jacobs attempted to maintain the feminist position did admit some of the exclusions on which it was dependent (for example, the self-sacrificing black woman) but that also neglected to recognize its link with flows of thought. As a result, Jacobs maintained a unity denying her thoughts plurality and thus, discouraging certain women from following her women’s rights cause. The narrative is not only the reflection of changes and struggles that were occurring in the nineteenth century, but it demonstrated the ways in which black women were deeply entrenched in the varieties of equal rights thinking of her time and freedom. Jacobs describes, “I think she saw something unusual was the matter with me. … She knows there is no security for her children. After they have entered their teens she lives in daily expectation of trouble” (Jacobs, 2003). Furthermore, it expresses the great number of women “voices”, which Jacobs was about to fight for women’s rights. Scholars have argued that by the end of the nineteenth century, ideas of freedom were giving way both to the antislavery movements and to free-thought ones. Not only doing such tactics confirms the creativity, intellect, and agency of the black population, they also offer new and open-ended opportunities for black people coping with those traditional oppression aspects. (Ernest 83).

Jacobs depicts that Linda made several attempts to escape slavery: she developed a detailed plan to save her children and herself. She hides in the artic of her Aunt Martha. Aunt Martha does several attempts to buy Linda, but Dr. Flint refused to sell her. In seven years, Linda and her family escape to the North. Mrs. Bruce buys Linda at the end of the book. By focusing on their lives as spiritual rather than racial or sexual beings, black feminists could avoid focusing solely on the current historical and sexualized white-black drama concentrating instead on a broader agenda, one that offered freedom from oppression as a result of one’s gender, class, or race. Under the slogan of freedom, they could voice criticisms of the present community and imagine a new society that they no doubt could not have done as simply black women. The desire of black women to escape slavery served not only to reflect the negative popular image of the black population but also to put new power and image in black women’s hands, functioning as a means of linking their concerns with those of white population. Hand in hand, black women like Jacobs imagined themselves struggling with white abolitionists in a radical social change. Certainly, the deep sense of her understanding is that the women wholly approve of the union of white and black populations. “I feared the sight of my children would be too much for my full heart …. I bent over the bed where lay my little Benny and baby Ellen. Poor little ones! fatherless and motherless!” (Jacobs, 2003). For Jacobs freedom means life and future hopes that she was deprived as a slave.

Jacobs describes in Incident of the Life of a Slave Girl that freedom is the main value and gift a person should possess. Without freedom life has no sense. Psychological and physical freedom allows a person to choose her life path and build her life. The black women, in turn, continue to act as his adoring servants; and they display little subjectivity or self-reflection. Therefore, what Jacobs tries to reflect in her vision is the forge of an imaginary space for the owners, showing white women as superior to the black women who were perceived as ignorant, irrational, and laboring lower class.

Works Cited

Ernest, J. Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth-Century African-American.

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Literature: Brown, Wilson, Jacobs, Delany, Douglass, and Harper. University Press of Mississippi, 1995.

Jacobs, H. (2003). Incident of the Life of a Slave Girl. Web.

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