Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Book Review

Introduction

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an autobiography written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, a fugitive and young mother slave, published in 1861. The book gives an evocative and haunting recount of Harriet Ann Jacobs's life as a slave in North Carolina and her last escape and emancipation. The classic narrative was written between 1853 and 1858 and was published pseudonymously in 1861 by L. Maria Child, giving a firsthand account of the horrors inflicted on slaves during the period. In the book, Harriet Ann Jacobs used Linda Brent as the pseudonym. The central theme of the book is based on the immediate account of slavery in America. In the scripting of this extraordinary memoir culminating the seven years Jacobs spent hiding in a crawl space in her grandmother's attic, she adeptly used the literary genres of the time, by presenting a feminist narrative that depicts the traumas and evil of slavery. Within the book, Jacobs documents the struggles and sexual abuse in her life as a slave as she strives to gain freedom for herself and her children. However, this paper will provide an overview of the book by summarizing and explaining the key points and review the book by outlining the major arguments within the narrative.

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Overview of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Born in slavery in 1813, near Edenton, North Carolina, Harriet Ann Jacobs enjoyed a happy life in her family with her maternal grandmother and brother, who were relatively in a good life. At six years old, Jacobs's mother died, an occurrence that made Jacobs begin to understand that she had been a slave all along. After her mother's death, Jacobs's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, took her in and taught her how to sew, read, and write treating her with the best care she ever could get. A few years later, when Margaret Horniblow died, Jacobs, at the age of twelve was willed to her niece where her life took a dramatic turn since her new masters were neglectful and cruel. During the period, Jacobs's new mistresses' father, Doctor James Norcom (Dr. Flint in the incidents) subjected her to unrelenting and aggressive sexual harassment. At sixteen years, scared that Dr. Flint would rape her, Jacobs decided to start a relationship with Samuel Tredwell Sawyer (Mr. Sands in the incident), a white neighbor with whom she hoped would protect her from Dr. Flint. Within their relations, Mr. Sands and Jacobs got two mixed-race children; Benny and Ellen. However, because both children were born to an enslaved woman, they were also considered slaves, according to the 17th-century principle of partus sequitur ventrem. Even though Jacobs felt ashamed of the illegitimate relationship, she seemed to gain from the relationship as she wanted protection from Dr. Flint. Further, Jacobs hoped that Dr. Flint would become angry about the relationship and send her to Sands. Instead, in 1835, Dr. Flint sent her away to a life of hard labor on his son's plantation.

Additionally, Jacobs makes a desperate plan of escaping to the North when she discovers that her children are to be sent to the fields. However, unwilling to either abandon her family or submit to Dr. Flint's abuse, Jacobs decided to run away and hide in an abandoned room of a sympathetic friend. Through such an action, Jacobs hoped that Dr. Flint would believe that she fled North and sell her children; however, Jacobs was relieved when Dr. Flint sold the children to a slave trader secretly representing Mr. Sands. After the occurrence, Sands sent the children to live with Aunt Martha, where Jacobs hid in a tiny attic crawl space in her grandmother's house. In the attic, Jacobs was unable to stand or sit, which permanently turned her physically incapacitated. Since Dr. Flint continued to hunt for Jacobs, this made it difficult for Jacobs to leave the attic, an occurrence that pushed Jacobs to stay in the attic for seven years. After the seven years in the attic, Jacobs managed to escape North by boat in search for Ellen as Benny remained with Aunt Martha. Within the occurrences and actions in this section of the book, various activities occur as Jacobs attempted to protect her children from the bonds of slavery. Ellen is seen enslaved in New York as she is treated like a slave while Benny had escaped because Dr. Flint attempted to re-enslave him. Further, these incidences in the book define various actions of slavery trade and ownership, especially with developments such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 passed by Congress. The various actions of slave trade significantly affected Jacobs as she attempted to protect herself and her children. In the end, the book closes with two major testimonials with one from George W. Lowther, a black antislavery writer, and Amy Post, a white abolitionist.

Review of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

From the different arguments in the book, this book affected me by increasing my understanding of slavery, Civil War and abolitionist works, especially in their effect on women and children. It also amongst the things I liked in the book. During the 1850s, a period when Jacobs was writing the book, slavery was a significant issue expanding in the US. According to Jacobs, she concluded by saying that, "cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities" (Jacobs, p. 52) deriving that slavery was terrible for everyone. However, Jacobs left some of the details that should have been included, especially with the implications of slavery to the male counterparts. In as much as women and children were affected by slavery, men encountered a similar fate and at times, worse. Jacobs refuted the claims on male slavery by quoting that, "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own" (Jacobs, p. 86). However, I would recommend this book to other readers since I have learned a collective composition of information on slavery and the Civil War. Also, I believe that Jacobs included more details on women and children slavery since she felt this would stir the reader both mentally and emotionally.

In consideration of the style that the book was written, I like it since it helps portray the actual message of the book. Within the reading, the style and structure of incidents offer a significant relation to the sentimental novels of the 19th century terming the book as realists and a classic with a simple and attractive style. In the book, Jacobs's language is direct and straightforward in such a manner that she does not employ symbolism or metaphors to get her story and plot through the dialogues and anecdotes. For example, she provided a direct introduction of the book quoting, "I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away" (Jacobs, p. 1). Further, the style of the book includes the use of direct appeals. This style is evident whereby, after zooming in on a slave girl and predicting the horrible future awaiting Jacobs, the narrator turned out from the incident and directly indicted the reader. Such incidents occur when the narrator recounts vivid episodes of injustice and pairs anecdotes with direct appeals to the reader. Through such style and structure, Jacobs insisted on telling the story entirely and honestly by pointing out the various details surrounding slavery, especially to the women and children.

Correspondingly, the book relates to this course by pointing out specific themes in the course work. For instance, the reading relates to the cult of true womanhood, slavery, the Civil War, and abolitionism. The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl offered a slave narrative which was the dominant literary mode in the early African-American literature and the slave history. Between 1820 and the Civil War, there were creations of white abolitionists as they attempted to promote antislavery causes, and as to pro-slavery claims. Within this book, it chronicles the abuse of slavery as the slaves struggled for self-respect and definition harrowing details of dangerous events and escapes. The direct interaction of the slavery story and the theme of slavery and Civil War relates to the course significantly. In connection to the abolitionist movement as detailed in the course, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl offers legal documentation of the slavery horrors connecting them to the cause of the abolition. Even after writing the book, Jacobs continued with her work to help slaves during and after the Civil War as she aided black refugees. In other developments, the Cult of True Womanhood was prevalent among the upper and middle-class white women during the antebellum period. This occurrence is evident in the book as Jacobs wanted to spur the female abolitionists to help protect enslaved black women alongside their children. Further, the book also addressed the influence of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 on the people in the South and North interacting with slavery and the Civil War.

In a comparison of my views to those of the two other reviewers of the book, both of them deliver that the book failed to carry an actual context of the theme of slavery and Civil War. They define that the book only comprehended details concerning the Women and their children during the slavery age and the various challenges they encountered. However, I believe the memoir offered a meaningful discourse as it includes other events during the period, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Conclusion

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a historical artifact and an African-American reading constituting the history of slavery by delivering details and experiences of black women under slavery. Within the book, Jacobs based most of the details of slavery in America by depicting the various events impacting the children and women. Further, Jacobs contributed to the slave narrative genre with the use of the techniques of sentimental novels that addressed gender and race issues. The incidents described in the book provide an underlying development from the slavery period into the Civil War and offers a proper understanding of slave narratives as they relate to the actual historical events.

Works Cited

Jacobs, Harriet S. Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl. Thayer & Eldridge, 1861.