Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girls is an autobiography written by Harriet Ann Jacobs. In this autobiography, using the name Linda Brent as a pseudonym, Jacobs writes about her life as a female slave, and what she endured to gain freedom for herself and her two children. Jacobs illustrates the sexual abuse that slave women face as well as their efforts to try to keep their children with them, and how devastating it is when they are sold and sent away.
Throughout the book, Jacobs tries to show shatter any illusions about slavery and show how truly horrible it is to the slaves. Not only that, she shows with events from her life how it is far worse for slave women then it is for slave men. She illustrates the horrors that all slaves endured, and showed how women suffered additional anguish by also suffering from sexual and emotional abuse from the masters and their wife’s, being treated as breeders, and having their children torn away from them.
While Jacobs expresses how harsh it is for slave women, it is still clear that it is in no …show more content…
A common occurrence was for the children to be simply sold off and separated from their mother. Jacobs describes one distraught mother that was separated from all seven of her children at the auction block (12). For any mother, the idea of having their child taken away is to think about, yet for many slave women this is the norm, and they are given no say in what happens to their children. It does not come as a surprise that this woman asks God to kill her (12), because she feels she has nothing left to live for. This desire for mothers to stay with their children makes it that much harder for them to try and escape. Jacobs herself could have escaped quicker and easier, but she endued the extra hardships because she desired her children’s more than her own
Throughout the book, Jacobs tries to show shatter any illusions about slavery and show how truly horrible it is to the slaves. Not only that, she shows with events from her life how it is far worse for slave women then it is for slave men. She illustrates the horrors that all slaves endured, and showed how women suffered additional anguish by also suffering from sexual and emotional abuse from the masters and their wife’s, being treated as breeders, and having their children torn away from them.
While Jacobs expresses how harsh it is for slave women, it is still clear that it is in no …show more content…
A common occurrence was for the children to be simply sold off and separated from their mother. Jacobs describes one distraught mother that was separated from all seven of her children at the auction block (12). For any mother, the idea of having their child taken away is to think about, yet for many slave women this is the norm, and they are given no say in what happens to their children. It does not come as a surprise that this woman asks God to kill her (12), because she feels she has nothing left to live for. This desire for mothers to stay with their children makes it that much harder for them to try and escape. Jacobs herself could have escaped quicker and easier, but she endued the extra hardships because she desired her children’s more than her own