Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Katie Mclarnon
Mr. Campbell th AP Lang 7
4 September 2014
Inevitable Corruption
In Harriet Jacobs's "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," she asserts that the institution
of slavery corrupts and destroys the morality of the slaveholder. By implementing methods such as cause and effect, irony, and rhetorical questions, Jacobs effectively portrays her evidently accurate claims. Jacobs strives to impress upon her readers how horrible and inhumane the repercussions of slavery can be upon the slave masters in order to highlight the additional negative effects on not only the black slaves, but white slaveholders as well. She speaks to her primary audience of Americans, who may have not perceived the significant amount of damage that had been done, in hopes that they would have joined her in her efforts to eliminate slavery.
To begin her essay, Jacobs uses cause and effect to highlight the many immoralities she
experienced from her masters and why they committed such acts. She speaks of a man who "had it not been for slavery, would have been a better man, and his wife a happier woman." Driven by the unconscious urges of slavery, this man watched his happily, settled wife and family live a life that "was made wretched" by his actions. Likewise, Jacobs narrates the story of another slaveholder who became so cruel because of slavery that when he died, his screaming and misery shocked even his friends. His unfortunate last words were, "I am going to hell, bury my money with me." He had no good intentions; slavery had stripped every last bit of morality from him.
Appalling are the consequences of slavery and Jacobs tries exceedingly hard to testify from her
own experiences that "slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks." And regardless of the corrupt effects of slavery witnessed and enforced by slaveholders, she observed that "few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin occasioned by this wicked
Mr. Campbell th AP Lang 7
4 September 2014
Inevitable Corruption
In Harriet Jacobs's "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," she asserts that the institution
of slavery corrupts and destroys the morality of the slaveholder. By implementing methods such as cause and effect, irony, and rhetorical questions, Jacobs effectively portrays her evidently accurate claims. Jacobs strives to impress upon her readers how horrible and inhumane the repercussions of slavery can be upon the slave masters in order to highlight the additional negative effects on not only the black slaves, but white slaveholders as well. She speaks to her primary audience of Americans, who may have not perceived the significant amount of damage that had been done, in hopes that they would have joined her in her efforts to eliminate slavery.
To begin her essay, Jacobs uses cause and effect to highlight the many immoralities she
experienced from her masters and why they committed such acts. She speaks of a man who "had it not been for slavery, would have been a better man, and his wife a happier woman." Driven by the unconscious urges of slavery, this man watched his happily, settled wife and family live a life that "was made wretched" by his actions. Likewise, Jacobs narrates the story of another slaveholder who became so cruel because of slavery that when he died, his screaming and misery shocked even his friends. His unfortunate last words were, "I am going to hell, bury my money with me." He had no good intentions; slavery had stripped every last bit of morality from him.
Appalling are the consequences of slavery and Jacobs tries exceedingly hard to testify from her
own experiences that "slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks." And regardless of the corrupt effects of slavery witnessed and enforced by slaveholders, she observed that "few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin occasioned by this wicked