Jacobs And Dickinson Transcendentalism

The ideas of romanticism, transcendentalism, and anti-slavery emerged in the nineteenth century. These ideas can be witnessed in the literature written by the writers of that time, prominently men. The nineteenth century’s patriarchic American society oppressed women, and did not expect them to be intellectuals, leaders, thinkers, philosophers, or creators. However, there were few women writers who overcame the challenges, and played significant roles in the history of American literature, among which were Harriet Ann Jacobs and Emily Dickinson. Although renowned for two different movements, anti-slavery and transcendentalism respectively, they both defied the societal values of their time and advocated equality, while on the other hand, possessed
Firstly, they were both female authors of the mid-nineteenth century. Jacobs lived from 1813-1879 (Yellin 2186). Meanwhile, Dickinson lived from 1830-1886 (Hart and McIntosh 3125). They both are often considered to be feminists, which is visible not only in their writings, but also in their personal life. In a short biography of Jacobs, Jean Fagan Yellin, an English professor at Pace University, states, “In Rochester, she became part of a circle of anti-slavery feminists” (Yellin 2185). Similarly, in the short biography of Dickinson, Peggy McIntosh and Ellen Louise Hart, cotemporary feminists, state that, “She read women writers with particular passion, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, the Brontes, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and her own friend, Helen Hunt Jackson” (Hart and McIntosh 3127). This clearly illustrates the feminist nature in both Harriet Ann Jacobs and Emily Dickinson. Meanwhile, they share this idea in their literature, too. Jacobs presents a radical feminist ideology in her novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. In a section, “The Jealous Mistress”, of the novel, she
Jacobs was a brave woman who escaped slavery. In a section of her novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she describes the awful conditions she had to endure in her grandma’s attic, where she hid for seven years to escape slavery. She explains how rats and mice would run over her bed, how she would sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light, and how she would suffer for air even more than for light. But, she then boldly states, “Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave, of others” (Jacobs 2203). This meticulously illustrates her bravery. On the contrary, Dickinson was someone who spent her whole life indoors obsessing over her poetry. She made only five or six trips away from Amherst (Hart and McIntosh 3126). So, it is not wrong to believe that people in Amherst knew her as that strange girl who gave friends bouquets of flowers with poems