“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is a narrative that describes a young girl’s trials and tribulations while being an involuntary member of the institution of slavery. Jacobs, like every other victim of the atrocity known as slavery, wishes that people in the north would do more to put a stop to this harmful practice. Slavery is an understood dishonor of the past. This is true, not only because of the injustices done to the slaves, but for the negative effects that the slave holders and their wives underwent. When there are basic rights of freedom being denied in a society, no ethical principles can be upheld. The fact that this sinful treatment of other human beings was permitted had a morally crippling effect not only on the principle victim, the slave, but on the entire household in which the slave resided. Slavery corrupted the morals of everyone within its reach.

First and foremost, we must recognize that the primary and most directly affected victim due to slavery, is of course, the slave. Ranging from lashings, emotional struggles, and even death, slaves have felt the truest and most severe form of slavery. They are not allowed to own property becaus

“I can testify, from my own experiences and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation”(52). Apparently, slavery not only obscures the morality of the slaves, but also those of the master who holds no respect for a woman's privacy. Here in this one house, there is a mature, adult male harassing a young woman he considers property and privilege. Then, a mistress filled with jealousy and rage and acting on these emotions. And finally a young slave burdened by race and gender, anxious to throw away her virginity for the sake or not having it stolen. All of the above conditions could arise together only under the institution of slavery. As Jacobs writes, "the degradation, the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery, are more than I can describe. They are greater than you would willingly believe" (28).

On an indirect level, there are other parties that suffer the consequences of slavery. The slave holders for example; slavery’s strong power puts them in a situation where they are entirely in control of another human life. This can only ultimately lead to the downfall of their moral character, for they believe that these slaves are born to serve them in whatever way they see fit. In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” Dr. Flint wa

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