Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs’ book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl talks about the lives of the people who are born in a slave family. Harriet Jacobs writes the story in the first person point of view by creating a character named Linda Brent. She describes her life as a slave for twenty-seven years and her life as she escaped to the North. Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in 1813 near Edenton, North Carolina. She lived her life happily until her mother and mistress died. Her new mistress’s father begins pressuring Linda to have a sexual relationship with him. Linda has struggled against Flint’s overtures for several years. He pressures and threatens her, and she defies and outwits him. In order to save herself from the mistress’s father, she starts having an affair with a white neighbor with whom she has two kids. Linda argues that a powerless slave girl cannot be held to the same standards of morality as a free woman. Flint sends Linda to a plantation from which she soon escapes and lives in the attics for seven years. Linda manages to escape to the north by a boat when Flint is still trying to find her. She meets her daughter Ellen in Brooklyn, where she took care of Mr. Sands child and cousin. Linda realizes that both her children are still tied to slavery. Thus, throughout the book, Linda expresses how she felt about slavery and her family in it. She notes that she still has not yet realized her dream of making a home for herself and her children to share. The book closes with two testimonials to its accuracy, one from Amy Post, a white abolitionist, and the other from George W. Lowther, a black antislavery writer.

Linda with her family was a happy person. She did her normal work that she had to do as a slave. She had two kids, ones a boy and another is a girl. She was happy with them except the part where she realizes that she is a slave to people in the community. Her life began innocently to when she came to know that she was a slave. For Linda, the most closest friends and acquaintances among her fellow slaves were aunt Martha, Mr. Sands, uncle Benjamin, uncle Philip, Benny, Ellen, Peter, and William. Out of these, the most important people her life where aunt Martha because took care of both her children when she was in the attic for seven years. Uncle Benjamin was another person in her life who meant a lot to her because he shows a path to escape which was the only way out for Linda. Benny and Ellen were the closest to her because they were her children. She wanted her kids to be happy and free from slavery. William was another person she was close to because he was the only person in her family that was living. William was Linda’s brother who also tried escaping slavery. The most dramatic changes in her life that took place in the early years was that she was a slave. Her life took a turning point when Mr. Flint forced her to have a sexual relationship with him. At a very young age, she had to face sexual assault and get married to a neighbor to get out of all that, but things got worse and she had two children. Things got worse in her life and she tried escaping but at the end, escaping also didn’t work.

Jacobs describes her relations with her white owners as messy. She didn’t have good relations with her white owners because she was treated rudely and harsh as she was a slave. She had a lot of problems with Mr. Flint. He forced Linda to have a sexual relationship with him because she was a slave for him. He hit Linda and treated her badly due to her race. Linda became a property of Flint through her daughter who was Linda’s second mistress when her mother and first mistress passed away. Linda tried everything that could be possible to deal with Mr. Flint and get away from him. Linda tried having a relationship with the neighbor Mr. Sands in order to save herself from Mr. Flint. She thought that when Mr. Flint will know about her relationship with Mr. Sands, he would