Preview

Analysis Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
295 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs
In the passage "Incidents in the Life of a slave Girl" by Harriet Jacobs she says "Slavery is bad for men, but is far more terrible for women." In my opinion I believe that it is equally harsh on both men and women.

In Frederick Douglas narrative he explains how slavery was immoral for men. One of the ways men suffered from slavery was physical. In his narrative he shows how slavery was when he says "Upon this he rushed at me with the fierceness of a tiger, tore off my clothes, and lashed me till he had worn out his switches." These actions were common and frequent for Douglas as this happen to everyone.

Women slaves also commonly experienced abuse. In Douglass's narrative he says "I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Harriet Jacobs waited until it was late at night before she decided to sneak away from the plantation house.. Her family members were very afraid for her . They felt that she would be caught , then they found that one of the white neighbors would hide Harriet. She was locked in a small chamber above the white neighbor’s bed chamber for the several months after that . Flint looked for her intensily. Harriet was then taken to a new hiding place in the swamp. Then to another hiding place, in a small space hidden between the ceiling and roof in her grandmother’s old shed . Harriet becomes very sickin the winter but she recovers. She spent seven years hidden away in the small space with only room to crawl.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second part of a slave narrative is the life as a slave (Turner). This is the majority of Harriet Ann Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, being from about Chapters II to XVI. She begins by describing how cruel her new master, Dr. Flint was: “[he] was an epicure. The cook never sent a dinner to his table without fear and trembling; for if there happened to be a dish not to his liking, he would either order her to be whipped, or compel her to eat every mouthful of it in his presence” (Jacobs, 22). By the age of fifteen, Dr. Flint would harass her more often and follow her closely; she was constantly reminded by him that she was nothing but his property. All of the doctor’s attention on Jacobs resulted in the mistress becoming…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, is a biography on Harriet Jacobs life, she is telling her story as a slave and the events that occurred in her life. I choose this book because I’ve always been interested in the topic of slaves and how their lives were. Being a female myself, I was curious about the life of a slave girl. I wanted to know and understand the life of Harriet Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery to Elijah and Delilah Jacobs in 1813. Grow up in Edenton, N.C. Both her parents were slaves with different families. She had a brother named John. At an early year her parents died, she was raised by her grandmother Molly Horniblow. Harriet had two children Louisa Matilda Jacobs and Joseph Jacobs who’s names…

    • 1949 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There is nothing more important to a woman than having the freedom to do as she pleases. It is an unexplainable feeling tingling on the inside of a person that is held captive against one’s will or bound to a master like a slave. Being bound by a slave master is horrible but being a woman of mixed color during that time can be detrimental to one’s soul. It is disheartening to a woman to be bound to her master in ways other than a servant. There were two narratives that tell of individual struggles of mulatto women bound under the control of another human being. Although the women in William Wells Brown Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter and Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl undergo drastically…

    • 1760 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Douglass begins by telling us he was born into slavery in Maryland, his mother’s name was Harriet Bailey, and he was separated from her at birth. He reveals he is not sure how old he is and that his father was a white man rumored to be his first master. He was later sent to Baltimore where his new master’s wife began to teach him to read. His Master Hugh found out and put a stop to it insisting Douglass would become unmanageable and unhappy. When Douglass heard this he realized that the lock on the bonds of slavery was ignorance, and education was his key to freedom. Eventually he succeeded in teaching himself to read and write with help from his white friends. After educating himself he developed a better understanding of slavery and began to regard his enslavers as wicked. When he is sent to be broken by Mr. Covey he is whipped on a regular basis and almost loses hope, but he ends up fighting back regaining confidence in himself. Douglas marks this as a turning point and vows never to be whipped again. Later, Douglass learns the trade of caulking, has a disagreement with his master over wages, attempts another escape and succeeds in reaching New York…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When I hear the word slavery, the only thing that comes to my head is cruelty. I could not even imagine how a human can threat another one like animals, as if they were and inferior or less because of the skin color. The idea of being able to read a book that was written by someone that lived during this years of brutality amazed me. Harriet Jacobs was taught how to read and write by her mothers mistress, this was not common for many of the slaves, and it is the reason why she used the name “Linda” to talk about herself during her stories, because if by any chance her master knew that she could read and write, she would have had the punishment of being whipped and put in jail. During the first chapters of her book we could notice that not all her years as a slave were miserable. In fact the first six years of her life were happy, because she didn’t know she was a slave, once she grew up her innocence started to fade, her days started to turn dark and sad. As described in her book the living conditions were like hell on earth. Slavery not only affected the slaves, it also completely destroyed moral…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To talk about Douglass’s slave life with physical violence we can think about Covey. According to Douglass’s narrative, he was a farm renter and a poor man. He works sometimes as a trainer of slaves from the government two or three years without any charge (p.126). To tell about the bitterest dregs of slavery in his entire life, Douglass said, it was the slavery life staying six months with Covey. Shortest nights were too long for him and the longest day were too short for him. Covey made it possible to break down, both physically and spiritually. Douglass’s disposition to read was departed, his intellect was flagged, slavery of dark night covered to him and transformed to a brute (p.136). That is how Covey’s physical torture make a disaster…

    • 308 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Harriet Jacobs is the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. During the civil war, when she published it, Harriet had to have her character as another name, so that there was no chance of her getting caught since Dr. Flint was still after her. Before she helped any other slaves, even her self, she does every thing she can just to help her children first. Harriet knew that the only way to let slaves know all that she went through in her experiences was to write an autobiography. Jacobs didn't think that the book was enough, so besides the job of taking care of her children, she also helped slaves by starting organizations.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    As a slave himself, he understands from first-hand experience how badly slaves were treated. He mentions emotional and physical abuse he received from his slaveholder. He talked about how the slaves were not allowed to know how old they were or information that might expose them to more about their families. Douglass mentioned the fact that slaveholders would whip the slaves until bloody while making other slaves watch. Slaveholders would shoot and kill their slaves if they did not follow orders, Douglass…

    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Christian religion, by nature itself, cries out against the state of slavery”(Abraham Lincoln ).In the book Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl the slaves were trying to see a path to freedom by the religion they wanted to forget the dark path of slavery, and eventually they found a path to freedom with religion. Harriet jacobs talks about how slavery and church was connected and her thoughts when she saw what was going on. She saw that the slaveholders were using religion to trick the slaves into obeying their masters and not killing them. Slaves used it as hope and to free their pain of slavery.…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Harriet Jacobs wanted to tell her story, but knew she lacked the skills to write the story herself. She had learned to read while young and enslaved, but, at the time of her escape to the North in 1842, she was not a proficient writer. She worked at it, though, in part by writing letters that were published by the New York Tribune, and with the help of her friend, Amy Post. Her writing skills improved, and by 1858, she had finished the manuscript of her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.…

    • 1670 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead” (Power 1), Aristotle knew the importance of education; especially literacy. Literacy is what stood between the slaves and the slaves owners. However, some of the enslaved were fortunate enough to possess more intelligence than their owners knew. Harriet Jacobs is one of the few that shared the knowledge of literacy and she knew the power that this held. She used this as her driving force to push through all of the hardships a slave had to endure on a daily basis. Jacobs account in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl truly depict the power of literacy.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Letters from a Slave Girl is a fictional biography by Mary E. Lyons. This story is about an eleven year old girl who’s name is Harriet. Harriet is eleven when she starts to write letters to her mom. In her letters she tells her mom about her first owner, Margaret Horniblow, that had died. Margaret made a promise to Harriet’s own mother on her deathbed and Harriet hopes that Margaret will free her in her will. But, Harriet is upset to find out that Margaret has left her with her three year old niece, Mary Matilda; because of this Harriet has to live with Mary’s family, which includes her mean ol’e father, Dr. Norcom. Then she starts writing letters to her father, she tells him about about life at the Norcom house, like how hard work it is…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Perhaps the most obvious way in which the institution of slavery has negatively impacted black slaves is physically. Slaves were often times beaten and whipped until bloody because their white masters felt they were being disobedient and needed them to learn to be subservient. In his narrative, Douglass describes and recalls a time when he witnessed his aunt being badly beaten by his heartless master.…

    • 1481 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Before Douglass realised he was willing to change, he had suffered from unconceivable cruelty in many occasions, which marked him and made him a slave. Slavery stole his humanity from the very first moment he was born. As it has been exposed before, he was separated from his mother at a very early age, causing Douglass to lose the familiar affection and closeness. Moreover, he was also a witness of the brutal abuse his aunt Hester suffered from their master. In addition, not only did he witness all the whippings, but he also suffered from countless whippings himself. The act of whipping was used both to punish the slaves and to show that the…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays