A Slave Girl Analysis

A Slave’s Freedom

A slave girl has all the ideas and prejudices against her just as a man does, but she also has more. A slave girl doesn’t only just have the harsh whippings and name calling like a man. She has to deal with sexual harassment, and sometimes even rape. She not only has to deal with her dignity and sense of self being ripped away, but her family being ripped apart. Harriet Jacob’s dealt with all the oppressions of slavery with outstanding bravery and by thinking quick on her feet and created her own freedom. Jacob’s not only outsmarted her family and friends surrounding her, she most importantly outsmarted Dr. Flint. Without this Jacob’s would have never been free. To get in the mindset of how awful the beginning of Harriet …show more content…
Jacob’s explains that her master “…was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he thought must surely subdue… He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred.” (Jacobs, 26). The idea of Jacob’s standing up to her master was no small feat for any slave, but standing up this to this man took incredible courage. Being a slave was obviously very brutal for anyone. You were being constantly whipped and belittled. A girl slave was forever being stared at. This staring wasn’t just the run of the mill staring, this staring made the slave feel completely undressed. Like her body was no longer hers. Harriet Jacobs was very aware of this, she expresses how a young girl would be ripped of her childhood and would be thrust into a world full of horrors in one passage, “She will become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master’s footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a …show more content…
These children soon became her whole world. The main reason to resist Dr. Flint’s oppression was no longer to save herself, as she had already given that up, it was now to protect and give her children a knew life. Jacobs knew that in order to give her children the best life they could possibly have, she must run away to the north. The moment Jacobs new that she must put her plan into place was when she heard that her children would be “broke in” to slave life. This meant many hard lessons learned usually be the end of a whip. She did all of her hiding and planning right under Dr. Flint’s nose. Jacobs took refuge in her friends help. She stayed at a white woman’s house in a closet, a swamp, and the biggest achievement of them all— her grandmothers shed. While doing this, Dr. Flint lived in the same town and often visited her grandmothers house asking for news about Harriet. Little did he know that if he were to lift a trap door in the shed she would be there. While hiding, Dr. Flint heard a report that she was in New York or Philadelphia. Hearing this and wanting Jacobs back he rode off to search for her. Soon Dr. Flint returned empty handed, and without a single clue that Jacobs was actually in a white women’s closet down the