Harriet Jacobs

When Harriet Jacobs published her autobiographical work “Incidents in the life of a slave girl” she believed that it was her duty to tell the country about her life as a slave in the south. She believed that by putting her story out there, she could influence more people to join the abolitionist movement and to humanize slaves in the eyes of white people. Jacobs uses the pen name Linda Brent to narrate her story in a first person point of view. Linda Brent was the literary representation of Harriet Jacobs and the events that were told were events that Jacobs experienced. Linda Brent was born into slavery but had a relatively nice childhood. It wasn’t until after the death of her mother’s mistress that her real struggles as a slave began. She
An example is after the death of Linda’s mistress, Linda is treated as property by being given to a niece of the deceased even though the mistress was supposedly kind and had taught Linda to read and sew. A symbolic moment in the book also shows how slavery was paraded as something lawful and thus good. This is when Linda brought her daughter to church and she was given a golden chain for the baby. “I wanted no chain to be fastened on my daughter, not even if its links were of gold. How earnestly I prayed that she might never feel the weight of slavery’s chain, whose iron entereth into the soul.” Jacobs is saying that no matter how perfect and justified slavery might seem to some, slavery is still evil and should be abolished because the success and profit of plantation owners was due to the suffering of hundreds for selfish
It also gave a voice to black slave women and represented them to the rest of the world. Many critics rejected the book for “romanticizing” Linda’s life as well as the story’s deviation from the traditional slave narrative structure. Since it did not detail a chronological timeline from slavery to freedom, critics didn’t consider it an authentic narrative. There was also some skepticism due to how some critics believed that Dr. Flint had been portrayed as more of a suitor trying to woo Linda rather than a master getting his property to submit. Backing this idea was the fact that Linda chooses to have children with Mr. Sands, another white man who later betrayed her as well instead of simply abstaining from taking lovers. Her supposed sexual freedom later helped trap her as she didn’t want to leave her children behind who were considered Flint’s