Life of a Slave Girl Essay

Harriet A. Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an archives written under the name of Linda Brent. This autobiography is a detailed news report of her life or need thereof. I use the term lack thereof because Harriet Jacobs was raised by her grandma due to her mother anxious(p) at a young age. Harriet was taught to read and write as a young knuckle down girl by her mistress. Harriets grandmother was a well-respected older knuckle down fair sex who gained her alleviatedom in the last result and testa ment of her mistress. Jacobs is determined not to be raped or concession all her rights to anyone. Jacobs didnt know she was a slave until she was almost a teenager. Her mother had passed away and the sad reality of her life as a slave sunk in. Harriet was raised to possess keen moral caliber and virtue. During this time in hi level inkiness women were slaves of a slave (Beal p.13).Frances Beal make that observation due to downcast women being subservient and deg raded by their slave owners and their sullen men. non all slave owners allowed their slaves to marry. With that in see black women often were used and misused by their own melt and their masters. Jacobs displays outstanding aim to remain true to chastity despite ceaseless stalking and demeaning remarks by Dr. Flint. In 1842 Harriet Jacobs escapes to freedom, this was at a great price she gave herself resulting to the unmarried lawyer next door and tidal bore him two shaverren. Jacobs hid in a 3foot crawl space at her grandmothers home for s even out so years. There was no light or room for her to stand up in that small space. Mice and insects crawled on her trunk and she hid there to avoid Dr. Flint. Jacobss story is a testament to what determination and a strong will can produce. Jacobss construction of black female empowerment was openly displayed throughout her story.She did not allow deterrence to prohibit her from believing in the hope that she was more than a slave. Harriet displayed this military capability in all that she did she stayed one step ahead of Dr. Flint. To talk of the brutality that was perpetrated by slave owners on slave girls and women was forbidden. Not only was it taboo but it was also unheard of. Harriet Jacobs was given a strong will and mind by God. She added to what God gave her by taking the advice of her grandmother. During this time in history black women were raped, molested, tortured, degraded and exploited economically.Black women worked on plantations plectron cotton, cooking and cleaning their homes and nursing the mistress babies while most generation their children were neglected. There was no possible way you had a right because you were berth and property cant own property (Jacobs). Dr. Flint told Harriet she was make for his use, made to obey his command in everything that she was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his (Jacobs). Harriet would not get into those words. Harriet w ould not accept that sentence he pronounced on her life. Jacobs knew she had a brain and could guess for herself and despite what parliamentary procedure had dictated to her race and to black women she would help to free other black women.The United States grew on the backs of slaves male and female. Yes our men suffered great sleazinesss. However, our black women suffered also. There is yet a debate for just about as to who suffered the most during thrall. I will say this as a passel we have suffered tremendously. There are no words that can commute the separation of families. The loss of parents and children who would die trying to purchase a child that God had allowed them to birth. If you birth a child isnt that child yours? fit in to slave rules and regulations slaves were nothing and if a slave girl gave birth to a child that was the masters she could not tell a soul. Not even the black man who she tried to make believe that he fathered the child. If the slave told th at the child was the masters she could be killed, sold or imprisoned (Jacobs).Certain black men are maintaining that they have been castrate by rescript but that black women somehow escaped this persecution and even contributed to this emasculation. The black woman had no protector and was used and in some cases, as the scapegoat for the evils this horrendous system has perpetrated on black men (Rubenstein). This statement rings true now as we look at the single parent homes of today. Today black women are yet subverting societal convention. We are yet rising above our current economic and socioeconomic status. In spite of great disadvantages and struggles black women are innovators.The black womans physical image has been distorted for societies view. We were called mammies From slavery through the Jim line-shooting era, the mammy image served the political, social, and economic interests of mainstream snowy America. During slavery, the mammy caricature was post as proof that b lacks in this case, black women were contented, even happy, as slaves. Her astray grin, hearty laugher, and loyal servitude were offered as evidence of the supposed humanity of the validation of slavery (Ferris). The mammy caricature was deliberately constructed to suggest ugliness. Mammy was envisioned as dark-skinned often pitch black, in a society that regarded black skin as ugly, tainted. She was obese, sometimes morbidly overweight.Moreover, she was often represent as old, or at least middle-aged. The attempt was to desexualize mammy. The unverbalised assumption was this No reasonable snow-clad man would choose a fat, elderly black woman instead of the idealized white woman. The black mammy was portrayed as lacking all sexual and stifling qualities (Ferris). This was a well calculated plan executed by the white slave owners. This was done to provide a false sense of security to the white woman. Mammy was some bogus reassurance that their ideal life course was not in danger of being destroyed. Harriet was able to expose this injustice through her themes. Jacobss writings were shared with whites and blacks. Exposing the dark pit of slavery and his secrets is what Harriet Jacobs and several other noteworthy African American literary abolitionists did.Their writing was productive and powerful. Their writings provided hope to other black people who dared to even dream of freedom. African American women suffered hardships of oppression and yet while being oppressed and depressed black women were inspired to write. They were compelled to share their story with others. Although, the retrospect of the events that shaped their lives was not pleasant memories they knew they could not remain silent. They knew that they had to tell the story in hopes and saving their race. My people perish for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4).Knowledge of what was exactly going on in the deep dark southeasterly would hopefully and eventually save lives.Spreading the truth a bout slavery would expedite freedom for the black race. During slavery it was also believed that black slave girls were promiscuous this undoubtedly was another craft placed upon the black race. However, this untruth was widely used as an excuse to sexually exploit the black female. This is what was used as the carte blanche to allow more evils upon the black slave girl. Black women continued to be oppressed for many years because society would not see black women as citizens.The de-eroticism of mammy meant that the white wife and by extension, the white family was safe.The sexual exploitation of black women by white