Life Of A Female Slave Analysis

The document that is being reviewed is The Life of a Female Slave written by Harriet Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs was an African American slave that, after many harsh trials, was able to obtain her freedom, along with her children, by escape to a free state. Jacobs is responsible for her own writings, in the sense that she both wrote them and published them herself, which is remarkable because during this time it was uncommon for slaves to be able to read and write. Jacobs’ writings were later recognized as “major work of African American literature” and an “essential document for history of slavery”. In Jacobs’ articles, she discuss the sexual relationships that would occur “between the races” that would portray the reality of slave families for the North. By writing these documents Harriet Jacobs put herself and her family at risk for being captured and brought back to the South where they would be placed under slavery once again and server punishment. For this reason Jacobs wrote under the alias Linda Brent.
In The Life of a Female Slave, Jacobs depicts her life as it was under the household of Mr. Flint. Jacobs depicts that the beginning of her life under Mr. Flint rule was pleasant until she became the age of 15. After Jacobs came to age Mr. Flint sought after her for sexual reasons and tried different approaches of seduction, gentle and …show more content…
Post encouraged Jacobs to write her autobiography because Post believed that Jacobs’ story was necessary to share the horrors of enslavement. In addition, it is clear that Jacobs is writing are directed for free people who lived in the North this is evident in this passage: “Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never know what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another….” (Jacobs