INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLA
Harriet Jacobs wrote the story of her life of enslavement, mistreatment, confinement and eventual freedom shortly before the civil war. Incident in the life of slave girl was intended to be read as a slave narrative and, as such to provide a historical documentation of what the reality of slavery entailed, at least for a young woman. It is also a political manifesto in that it argues that the realities of slavery were not much different from the Northern social norms of segregation. Her story is at once a confession and a history of a child taught a set of family values and morals and how these had to be set aside in order to maintain a little of self-worth and dignity under the constraints (legal and social) of slavery. The chapter "Still in Prison" uses imagery that addresses the irony of Jacobs' 'freedom' as a prisoner in her grandmother's garret. She was imprisoned, "yet the laws allowed him (her owner) to be out in the free air, while I, guiltless of crime, was pent up here, as the only means of avoiding the cruelties the laws allowed him to inflict upon me!" Her actions to protect herself, her moral beliefs and her family against Flint's rape attempts can be deemed criminal by Flint. Following the birth of her c
hild, she describes his outburst in legal terminology: "Then he launched out upon his usual themes, my crimes against him, and my ingratitude for his forbearance. The laws were laid down to me anew, and I was dismissed." By this it can be seen that she, at least in part, is directing her narrative toward the legal system as it emerged before the Civil War, hoping to influence it toward change. She attempts to do so by providing a description that has two purposes: reveal her as a normal person, in the pursuit of normal activities such as family life and learning, in order to argue that the laws of slavery were in opposition to the ethical foundation of democracy and to reveal the injustices of the law as interpreted for the White individual and against the Black. Her conclusion makes the connection between external laws and practices and internal moral and, or, ethical reaction. As a black woman, she rides in segregated trains and boats, stays in segregated hotels, and describes racist work rules and work places. As a member of this reconstituted family, she was not put into a "Jim Crow Car,.....neither was I invited to ride through the streets on top of trunks in a truck; but every where I found the same manifestations of the cruel prejudice, which so discourages the feelings, and represses the energies of the colored people" When she is finally discovered she is forced to flee and to begin another life as servant in the North. It is during this period that her argument concerning the hypocrisy of the Northern culture in it's rejection of the legal bounds of slavery while embracing social norms that were nearly as restrictive and anti-human. In her new position she is able to formulate another family of sorts with the child in her care. Her own children leave and she is also able to experience the different cultural aspects of England and life as a privileged servant as opposed to a slave.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Dr Flint, Civil War, Harriet Jacobs, Baby Mary, Crow Carneither, slave girl, own children, story life, social norms, civil war, england life, laws allowed, family life,
Approximate Word count = 1297
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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