Harriet Ann Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

American society believes in known principles, namely, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence). The pursuit of happiness relates to the motif of the American Dream, which suggests that the freedom to work for a living leads to success, wealth, and social mobility. This is closely connected to America’s capitalist economic system, which promotes private production of goods and services, further propelling the idea that an individual can achieve the Dream if only he or she works hard enough for it. On the contrary, the ideal of freedom within a capitalist society is an illusion created by those in power to further oppress minorities. Harriet Ann Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Rebecca Harding
Through her narrative, readers capture a glimpse of the horrors of slavery in the American South, which include murder, rape, and abuse. Linda describes the exchanging of property, which include her and her family members. In her narrative, she says, "Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another" (930). Using the simile of a slave as chattel, she tells the reader that they will never know what it means to be a person treated as an object, attacking the laws that allow this to happen. But why were these laws enacted? While race is an obvious factor, owning slaves offered free labor to produce product, which slaveowners then sold for profit. If it weren’t for capitalism, which values monetary success over basic humanity, slavery would not be able to thrive, and Linda Brent would, like her readers, “never [know] what it is to be... [reduced] to the condition of a