Harriett Jacobs
In today’s society no human being can ever imagine the pain, loneliness, anguish, and complete agony, that black women encountered during slavery. These women endured this pain their whole lives, there only joy and since of pride came from there children and families, who were ripped away from them and sold, never to be seen or heard from again. In the book, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, Linda Brent tells a breathtaking story of how her twenty years was spent in slavery with her master Dr. Flint. She speaks of her negative situations and how she overcame them. She takes you into the depths of slavery and shows you how slavery really was. She tells you the love and pain of being an unmarried slave mother. At around the age of twenty or so, Linda escapes and ends up in very small garret only nine foot long and seven foot wide. She lived in this hole with not even a crack of light, no clean air, and hardly ever moved for close to seven years. She finally was able to escape and make it to the North. She and her children lived a much better life and most importantly they all lived free. In the book Linda has mixed feelings about her children because like any mother she so dearly loves them. She doesn’t want them to go thr
ough the same things that she has so she wants them to die, but since she loves them so much she doesn’t want to become like other slave mothers by losing her children. How torn and powerless she must have felt as a slave mother. Linda also speaks of "The Slaves New Year’s Day", this was the time that slaves everywhere were sold and leased. Many mothers were torn from their husbands and their children. Linda speaks of one woman she witnessed, "I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all . . . (The woman screamed) Gone! All gone! Why doesn’t God kill me?" Linda explains that things like this happen daily, even hourly. Linda’s master often made perverted comments to her; he began to fill her mind with degrading images and words. He often abused Linda and was constantly threatening her and her life explaining that he would never sell her and that she would be in their as long as he had an heir. Jacobs represents the concept of freedom by exerting her own power. Even though the slave masters had power over her, she was sly and cunning and took the power she knew to overcome obstacles. For instance, instead of having a child by her master, she purposely took the control into her hands and had a baby by another child. By hiding in the garret for so many years, she also exerted power. Even though she was stuck there for so long, she took the power into her own hands. Linda finally made it to North safel
Some topics in this essay:
Dr Flint,
Year’s Day,
Slave Law,
Free Freedom,
,
Linda Brent,
Dr Flint’s,
fugitive slave,
dr flint,
slave mother,
fugitive slave law,
children free,
linda brent,
slave masters,
black woman,
linda speaks,
loves doesn’t,
Fugitive Slave,
slave law,
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Approximate Word count = 1014
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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