In the opening narrative Linda Brent talks about how she was fortunate and never fell like a slave during her early childhood till the age of 6. Here Linda introduces her father, though she does acknowledge that he is a slave she goes the great distance to point out all the qualities he possesses that were not the typical qualities in a slaved man, hence “…Was a carpenter and considered so intelligent and skilful in his trade, that when buildings out of the common line were to be erected, he was sent for from long distances, to be head workman”. In the opening of the narrative Linda also introduces her maternal grandmother whom later on we learn will become the center stone in Brent’s life. Her grandmother is given permission from her mistress to open a bakery shop and is able to make extra income which she is planning to save it and use it in the future to purchase the freedom of her grandchildren. Again here we see another quality not much seeing in other slaves. Though they were slaves I had the impression from the opening of the narrative that Brent and her Family were somewhat, if I dare say, fortunate in their lives as slaves. When Linda is 12 years old her mistress dies and Linda is sold to the daughter of her mistress sister whom is 5 years old. Dr. Flint had married the sister of Linda's mistress, and Linda is now the property of their young daughter.
Dr. Flint becomes obsess with Linda. He sexually and physically abuses her. When Linda falls in love with a free Negro man Linda asks Dr, Flint permission to marry him. Dr. Flint becomes violent and strikes at her. Fearing for the life of her lover, Linda tells the free Negro man to life town and forgets about her. Dr. Flint becomes Linda’s nightmare throughout the narrative. Dr. Flints tries countless times to try to win Linda’s Submission. He tries to plan a trip for him, Linda and other slaves to Louisiana but after sending his son to view the conditions of such place the son comes back with unfavorable news to Linda’s advantage. Linda comes up with her own scheme and become the mistress of Mr. Sands, an unmarried, white lawyer who has shown an interest in her. They have sexual relations and Linda becomes pregnant from him. Linda knew that by doing so Dr. Flint would remove her from his plantation. The first child was a boy. Later she bears another child, a girl, from Mr. Sands. She decides to escape the mall treatment of Dr. Flints and hides her self in her grandmothers house for seven years/ Later she lives the South with her children and finds hospitality with the Bruce family whom eventually buy her freedom from Dr. Flints daughter.
Summary Above
Analysis and thoughts below
I found the narrative fascinating. It was easy to read, though I have some difficulty following the family tree for both Linda’s family and their original owners.
Though I mentioned above that Linda and her family were “fortunate” in their lives as slave, it is a common theme in the narrative that there are no good masters. Many times throughout the narrative I kept waiting for one of the many masters or mistresses to grant them their freedom believing that their close ties to them would mean such thing.
The narrative was filled with many different human behavior and emotions, Mrs. Flint jealousy towards Linda due to her husband’s affixation with Linda. Dr. Flint’s animalistic and brute behavior towards Linda. He reminded me of a little boy who gets into a tantrum fit when they don’t get what they want. Linda’s grandmother was most beloved and supportive. Mrs. Bruce’s selflessness finally gave Linda and her children what her parents and grandmother so anxiously wanted for her.
Vanessa Martinez.
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This is the third of four personal slave narratives that we are reading: Phyllis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, and now Harriet Jacobs (Frederick Douglass to come). What does each, separately, experientially offer?
ReplyDeleteWheatley, born a slave, was acquired by a Boston family and taught reading, writing, and religion. Her poetry explores traditional religious themes, but introduces the question of slavery into the religious picture; as per our readings, she exposes the fallacy of persistent racial inequality in the face of religious and literary equality.
As per his writings, Equiano was born free in Africa, and was captured as a child and brought to the Americas. Conceiving his masters superior, he strives to acquire their language, business, literature, science, and religion; he perfects these, and uses them to eventually buy back his own freedom. His writings detail his experiences as a free and enslaved man, relate his employment over fellow slaves as well as his efforts at entrepreneurship, and laud his Quaker master for kindness and trustworthiness in his treatment and in allowing his freedom.
Harriet Jacobs's case is a hybrid of these two. She is born a slave, but is consciously free for the very first part of her life. Her mistress teaches her reading and writing. Building upon the "usury" and miscegenation experienced by female slaves that has been hinted at by de las Casas, Rowlandson, and others, Jacobs's narrative limns her harassment by a rapacious slave owner, and the terrors of white domination, hard work, escape, and refugeeism. This is seemingly the first narrative from the perspective of a female African-American condemned to harsh, harassed, slave conditions.
Linda Brent was born a slave and its sad to read how she didn't even feel like one until she was 6 years old. She shouldn't have ever had such feelings in the first place but almost nothing works out the way we all want it too. Especially in this time and in this reading. Linda Brent talks about her father but she doesnt want to point out that he is a slave as well. Yet she talks about how intelligent and hanrdworking he is in his field of work. It's terrible to read how a 5 year old little girl can have the responsibility to own a slave. This little girl owned Linda Brent who was only 12 years old at the time. In this reading we see that the family ties between the slaves and the slave owners are pretty close not in relationship but in owning them a long time. We also get the feeling that they were fair owners becasue they let Linda be a kid when she was a kid. I found my anticipation for something good to happen grow. Unfortunatly you are disappointed with even more upsetting news as the story prolongs. Every person is so different than the other in this reading. Dr. Flint was dreadful, he is a grown man that gets upset when he doesn't get what he wants. Vanessa Martinez has a point when she says he acts like a little boy. We understand that Linda's grandmother is great and supportive when ever she can be. At last Mr. Bruce is an angel in disguise who gave Linda and the family everything they longed for, and that was to be free.
ReplyDeleteJacobs' "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is the first slave narrative with a uniquely feminine voice. Jacobs seem to be speaking to a specific audience- women- about a shared experience (of sexual violence and abuse) while differentiating between the unique experience of a slave woman and that of a free woman. Jacobs speaks of her plight, "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." The suffering Jacobs speaks of is the sexual abuse slave women were forced to endure (as she herself did) as the property of a master.
ReplyDeleteThere is a struggle within Jacobs' narrative. She very clearly believes her circumstances led her to compromise herself in certain ways. On multiple occasions she says that a woman slave mustn't be judged by the same standards as others. "The condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible." At the same time, she doesn't truly excuse her behavior (when she submits to a lover who is not her owner and unmarried). Jacobs is preoccupied with her virtue and struggles with this idea of purity and goodness. Both she and her grandmother believe the preservation of her virtue is a choice. In fact, when her grandmother believes Jacobs has been raped by her owner, she blames Jacobs, as if her abuse is a conscious decision made on Jacobs part.
It is interesting to see the influence of religion on Jacob's liberal mind. Hers is a feminist mind struggling to break free from generational oppression. Her literacy enables her to educate herself and to truly verbalize her situation as a slave. There are no gray areas in her mind on the subject of ownership over another human being. She is also able to begin to verbalize her situation specifically as a woman and slave. However, this is limited by her struggle with virtue- the idea that love outside marriage is tainted by sin.
-Irma Suarez
The narrative of Harriet Jacobs really highlights the plight of women during slavery. She recounts her experiences as a slave and a mother under the pseudonym Linda Brent. It makes me angry to think that a woman and mother was subjected to such cruelty and harsh treatment and living with constant threat to her children. I think that this kind of cruelty shows how slavery can disrupt everything including the traditional meaning of motherhood. Brent was amazing and selfless in the fact that she sought freedom for her children and not for herself. She escapes from her master but instead of fleeing immediately to the North, she remains near to her home to be close to her children until they were able to get across the Mason Dixon line. From the narrative it is easy to see that it must have been very difficult for female slaves to keep their families together. Jacobs seems to be saying that motherhood is a force that can defy slavery.
ReplyDeleteJacob’s strategy is clearly rhetoric. She appeals primarily to the female white audience. She seems to regard the reader as an equal, playing on the emotions of women in particular. By focusing on the issues that encompasses womanhood and putting them in the perspective of a slave, Jacob’s narrative pleads to the empathy in all women regardless of race.
-Vedi Ramdhanie
It is always interesting to see those confined by social constraints break away from their expected fates. In Harriet Jacobs "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", we find various instances of escape. As Vanessa elaborately explains in her summary, Brent's father was not the average slave but instead a skilled and intelligent carpenter who was valued more than a typical slave of that time. Yehoshua also states a point that I immediately recognized as this narrative resembles the journey of Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was another slave on the journey for freedom who was similarly valued for his skill and intelligence. There is a parallel in the characters as they break the social norms of the slavery concept and escape the set limitation of slavery.
ReplyDeleteThe female narrative of the story is intriguing as Jacobs ultimately sets Linda in the feminine sphere of domesticity. Although this story highlights the escape from slavery, Linda is seeking a safe haven to raise her children. Though this is a logical frame of thought, it illustrates that women still had to fulfill their role as caregivers.
Rex De Asis
I feel that Harriet Jacobs' "Incidents," is a very moving piece about her own life as a slave, and the ordeal that she underwent in order to become free. She kind of makes me feel different about slavery, because she wasn't always treated horribly. From the moment she was born, she was a slave, but she didn't realize it until after her mother died when she was six years old and she was sold. Even then, she was taught how to read and write, which is something that most slaves were never privy to. It really was a privledge. Think about it. It was that gift that led her to writing the story that we are reading now. Without that, we would never have known about her or her life...she would have just been another ordinary slave. It was when she was living with Dr Flint and his family, that she really got the feel of how slaves were treated, and it was horrible. I can't imagine not being able to marry the person that I love just because he was "free" and I wasn't. That must have broken her heart. The way Dr Flint treated her because she had fallen in love was terrible. I guess she felt like she had no other way but to have an affair and have children, though that didn't really help her much. It seemed to have caused he more grief than anything else. The only good thing that came about it, besides her having her children, was that it was the start of her escape to freedom.
ReplyDelete"It was impossible for me to move in an errect position, but I crawled about my den for exercise," (1822). I can't imagine being in a place where I couldn't stand up, or see daylight. That must have been unbearable but somehow she was able to bear it. If it was me, I doubt I would have lasted as long as she did...then again, I've always had my freedom. Perhaps if I had been in her position, I would have been able to do what she did. The idea of having to buy one's own freedom is repulsive and wrong. No one should have to buy their own freedom when we are all born into this world the same way; race shouldn't matter. I feel like on the issue of slavery in itself, it should never have existed. Being a made is one thing, they weren't treated the way the slaves were. People like Dr Flint bullied people just because they could and it was not right. I'm glad that I do not live in a time where slavery still exists, because I don't know what I would have done.
Reading Jacob’s biography was tough man. I don’t think that I have ever read an African Slave Biography written by a woman before. I cannot even begin to imagine the emotions she went through while being in slavery, but seriously, I give her props for standing up against that VAN***HOLE FLINT and THE DODGES. When I read the section about what Jacobs had to do in order to not become Dr. Flint’s concubine, I was like dang, that is gonna piss off a lot of women, they are probably gonna ask, hum yeah, so u gave it up to another white man instead of Flint who promised to turn u into a lady (LADY- whatever the fugde that means). I totally understand why she did what she did. It was a way for her to gain control of her situation . She choose her “white unmarried gentleman” on her own terms, he did not force himself upon her. She choose to have children by the gentleman, in a way, she choose the identity of her family. There have been stories of families being separated during slavery, however, by Jacobs choosing to have her family with the kind gentleman, she had the power and the control to make sure her family is not separated. I wonder though, how come the gentleman does not have a name? I got many theories for this but I will settle on the one about her trying to protect his identity from the public. She had a lot of balls to stand up against Dr. Flint and everybody else who tried to bring her down. I also understands why she feels as if her freedom was not really her freedom, I mean yeah, in order for her to get her freedom, Mrs. Bruce had to buy it for her but she still became free. I am also glad that she included kind white individuals in her biography because it lets us know that not every single white person was for slavery and that not all whites were diluded and ignorant. Mad props to Jacobs.
ReplyDeleteI found this reading more interesting then anything I have done before. I never realised someone who was a slave can be so confused. She seems confused just finding out she is slave, but kind of living remnnants of freedom. Her Grandmother had her own busines, living as if it were her own life, the relaity is she is a slave. The selling fo her kids was the remnent the reminder of her slavery
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