Essay On Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, there is no doubt that Linda Brent is a hero. In Janice Daniel’s literary criticism, “A New Kind of Hero: Harriet Jacob’s,” she presents the different types of hero Linda is. She says, “she’s simultaneously a heroic slave who strives against all odds to obtain freedom, a desperate mother who is engulfed in the struggle for the survival of her children, and a woman who openly acknowledges and endures the sexual tribulations of being bother a slave and a female” (Daniel). However, Daniel is adding to that list in her analysis. She suggests that not only is Linda a hero of all those things, but she is also presented as a female version of a romance hero. This new type of hero is spun off of the past male heroes in the romance genre. Daniel
notes that Linda’s incidents and journey to find an identity parallels a quest of a traditional hero of romance (Daniel). This take on why feminism is so important in the novel is different from the other literary criticisms, but is undoubtedly accurate. Daniel begins her reasoning with, “Linda’s confirmation as a romance hero commences with her earliest remembrances of childhood.” She explains that in a romance hero’s tale it has to begin with a significant event. At the beginning of the novel Jacobs writes, “When I was six years old, my mother died; and then, for the first time, I learned, by the talk around me, that I was a slave” (6). This distinctive beginning and loss of identity signals the idea of a romantic female hero’s tale finding her lost existence. Linda’s experiences continue to resemble those of a romance hero throughout the novel. At the age of fifteen her sexual harassment by Dr. Flint begins and again she begins her search for her sexual freedom. Daniel describes this by saying, “she must conquer the menacing monster [Dr. Flint] however it materializes…After realizing that her childhood is over anyway, she gives herself sexually to another white man whose compassionate nature may lead him to buy her and grant her freedom.” By engaging with a man of her choice, Linda becomes that much closer to independence in her journey. After her children are born, the thought of Dr. Flint owning them terrifies her, so she runs away taking immediate action.
In her hunt to reach the free states, Linda will encounter dangerous obstacles and will face many trying road blocks. The literary criticism notes, “that the romance hero’s passage must move him into a dangerous pattern, into a place where he is isolated, immobile and almost mechanical in behavior” (Daniel). Daniel makes this parallel in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, to when Linda was living and hiding in the crawl space for seven years. Jacobs writing, “My limbs were benumbed by inaction, and the cold filled them with cramp. I had painful sensations of coldness in my head; and I lost the power of speech,” (122) furthers Daniel’s point and reassures the audience that Linda is indeed a romance hero. Daniel continues on this theme of a new kind of hero, by pointing out more incidents that twin experiences of a romantic hero. For example, “the oracle of the romance, the voice of a god-like figure behind the action who expresses his wil and speaks of the ultimate outcome” (Daniel). For Linda, her oracle is her grandmother whom guides her throughout her life to be the best she can be. Her grandmother is her mother figure, grandmother figure, god-like figure, and best friend all in
one. After one fourth of the novel is solely focused on Linda’s immobility, Linda relocates to free soil giving life back to her adventure. After she reaches free land, the reader may think that the book is drawing to an end. However, Daniel explains, “a trial scene is common near the end of a romance, usually an unjust trial created by society as a whole rather than one individual” (Daniel). In the novel, the final trial is considered the abundant prejudices in the north and the hardship of being reunited with her children for good. Finally, Linda’s dream of freedom, for herself and her children, turns into a reality when Mrs. Baker liberates them. Linda says, “I and my children are now free! We are free from the power of slaveholders as are the white people of the north” (Jacobs 201). The entire novel is Linda fighting to improve her life, her children’s lives and both of their environments. According to Daniel and the reader of this novel, “[Linda] role represents a heroic slave, heroic mother, and heroic female” (Daniel). The role of a romance hero adds another element to Linda’s character without taking away from the others. Jacob’s is able to maneuver away from traditional gender roles in her novel and her life. The romance hero presented in Linda crosses gender ideologies and destroys the traditional idea that only men can hold these traits.