Harriet Jacobs takes a great risk writing her trials as a house servant in the south and a fugitive in the north. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl gives a true account of the brutality slavery held for women. A perspective that was relatively secretive during Jacobs’ time. Jacobs’ narrative focuses on subjugation due to race but it also portrays many women an strong and often open roles. Women in these roles were minimal and often suffered for their outspoken roles.

Harriet Jacobs’ narrative is a powerful statement unveiling the impossibility and undesirability of achieving the ideal put forth by men and maintained

In struggling against the brutal dynamics of a system that simultaneously set before her ideals of a true woman, but refused to acknowledge her as a human being, Jacobs emerges scarred but victorious. Her rational powers and will to action facilitate her efforts to find strategies for dealing with sexual harassment from her master, for maintaining family unity, and in establishing a moral code in harmony with her beliefs and situation. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs’ primary ordeal is the persistent sexual harassment and obsessive pursuit by Dr. Flint. Instead of bowing to what appears to be the inescapable sexual regression by Flint, Jacobs devises a plan of action that helps her maintain dignity, self-hood, and family unity. Jacobs took on another white man, Sawyer, as a lover because she knew it was inevitable that she would bear a white man’s child. Since Flint denied Jacobs a marriage to a free black man and refused to sell her to anyone, Jacobs knew that she would never be allowed a traditional home and family. By choosing Sawyer as a lover and father to her children, Jacobs went against the ideal image of womanhood and showed independence. Making this choice meant that Jacobs willingly gave up her virginity outside of marriage. An action that is completely against traditional moral codes in her time. Jacobs exhibits the integrity of a survivalists. She thinks and speaks for herself, devises a plan and acts on it, all the while keeping in mind family unity and protection for her children. While attempting to embrace the ideals of womanhood, Jacobs is able to recognize and disregard the standards that cannot be applies and establishes for herself concepts of integrity and self-hood.

Jacobs uses a pseudonym in the novel. She portrays herself as Linda Brent. Of all the women that Linda Brent meets, not one fits the mole of a true woman in slave times. Aunt Martha, Linda’s Grandmother, is a free woman who owns her o

Some topics in this essay:
Harriet Jacobs’, Aunt Martha, Flint Jacobs, Slave Girl, Brent Throughout, , Dr Flint, Girl Linda, Linda’s Grandmother, Jacobs’ Jacobs’, true woman, life slave girl, incidents life slave, slave girl, life slave, incidents life, family unity, jacobs’ narrative, dr flint, harriet jacobs’, slave narrative, linda brent, captive black women, harriet jacobs’ incidents, jacobs’ incidents life,