Harriet Jacobs’ usage of metaphors and specific …show more content…
Jacobs uses powerful phrases like “I wished that he might die in infancy” which later clash with words of love like “my darling”. This displays the hypocrisy of slavery as it relates to a mother’s rights and love of her child while differing with the laws that state the child does not belong to the mother. This juxtaposition also reveals how slave mothers would weigh death and slavery. At the end of this passage, Jacobs writes, “Death is better than slavery”. The comparison of death and slavery speaks to the abolitionist’s argument, outlining the struggles that slave women must deal with as well as the hypocrisy in the laws that support the institution of slavery. Her adverse diction and hypocritical phrasing address the flaws in the pro-slavery argument and recapitulates the endeavors a slave woman must