Incidents In The Live Of A Slave Girl Analysis

What are human morals when one is not defined as human? Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Live of a Slave Girl makes the case for a call to action against the horrors of slavery.Jacobs uses the idea of civil disobedience and the failure of institutions to produce a form of agency to support her argument, but above all else, her rhetoric reflects the idea that slavery colors morality. Jacobs takes Thoreau’s argument further by demanding collective action against slavery by Northern White Abolitionists before any moral consideration. Using Thoreau’s definition of self-agency being defined as the ability to think critically about which morals to defend, Jacob defines self-agency as the ability to search for freedom, which has been closed off to the slaves. Drawing upon her struggle for …show more content…
for the slave, whose position defined by their constant obedience. For a slave, whose life is based on obedience, Jacobs argues that a new form of disobedience based on emancipation is the ultimate guarantor of hope. Being disobedient is not an ideological rejection of authority but rather a tool to gain personhood and provide a lens to frame the morality of her actions. She revises the mantra of individualism espoused by Thoreau in Civil Disobedience arguing that the experience of the enslaved women shows that physical freedom is a prerequisite to Thoreauvian ideological disobedience. Based on her experience, Jacobs argues that for the slave, obedience is the sine qua non -- the choice to obey or disobey manifests itself in completely different forms and necessitates a more nuanced analysis of the law. Obedience is the defining feature of a slave’s life. Dr. Flint abuses her both physically and mentally; Jacobs explains her lived experience by saying “ I command