1. Who do you think Jacobs envisions as the audience for her autobiography? How can you tell?
2. What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
3. How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
4. Jacobs writes, “the influences of slavery…had made me prematurely knowing concerning the evil ways of the world.” What do you think she means here?
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
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4) What I think Jacobs means here is that her experience under the institution of slavery, of being a victim to the oppression and pain that comes with slavery, has shown her, at a young age, just how evil the world is. Jacobs grew up as a slave and saw how other slave women were treated, especially those that were cursed with beauty. She was also subjected to horrible treatment by Dr. Flint. Growing up in such an environment where everyone around her is either a slave, was a slave, or a slaveholder, exposed her to the evils of the world. Rather than being able to keep her innocence as a child and stay ignorant of just how bad society can be, her experiences as a slave from an early age made her prematurely aware of how just awful and downright evil people could be.
3. How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
In the autobiography Jacobs lets herself get pregnant to a white man. This is an example of how she tried to take control of her destiny because women were usually raped. Jacobs getting pregnant emphasized she took control of her destiny because she was avoiding to get raped. Her child was also going to be treated better than the children of slaves. Despite her being a slave, she believes in her freedom and expresses it through her body. Her body is her property and she is showing that by letting the white man impregnate her rather than letting herself be forcefully raped.
2. Jacobs adds to the understanding of the experience of slavery by giving a more detailed view of a female slave. Something that I understood more about the experience of slavery for female slaves is how they were being treated like how rape was normal, and if a slave is born pretty, it is worse for her. In Frederick’s autobiography, he does talk about female slaves’ relations with their children, and with Jacob’s autobiography, I understood more the relationship between the mother and children from a female perspective. In Jacobs, I learned the strong bond female slaves had towards their children and their guilt for giving birth to them, especially their daughters. Jacobs also includes more details of the hardship of escaping slavery. For example, the perseverance of a slave master trying to hunt down their slave for years despite not having luck. Also, I got a better understanding of how hard it was to get a job as an escapee, like the anxiety she felt trying to find a job but still looking out for people who might want to capture her.
3. Jacobs attempts to control her destiny by falling in love with a white man. When she was pregnant, she had a daughter that she feared might experience slavery in the future. Throughout the story, Jacobs explains her experience as a slave when their masters raped them. From this, she learned that she needed to protect herself and her daughters so that when they get older, they will be able to defend themselves. Frederick Douglass experienced this in his autobiography when their masters were making slaves work and whipping them whenever they did not do their job. From this experience, Douglass learned what it meant to be a man when he was fighting Mr. Covey, his master. He found out this was his way to fight for freedom. Jacobs controlled her destiny by taking care of herself and her children when they look for freedom.
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
What Jacobs adds to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass is the female slave’s perspective. By the time female slaves began to physically mature, around the age of 15, their masters would often sexually assault them and rape them. Furthermore, female slaves who were physically attractive were often treated the worst, because they would have to endure more rape. Additionally, female slaves had no jurisdiction over their bodies, because they were expected to accept their assault. Their masters would also get jealous if the female slaves showed attention to other males, often resulting in beatings from jealousy. Moreover, the wives of the masters would get jealous and enraged that their husbands were physically involved with females slaves, thus this also resulted in beatings from the masters’ wives.
2. What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
From Douglass’s autobiography, we learned the life of a slave how they lived, how they have to work constantly, how they get punished, and many other aspects of their life. We learned more from Jacobs’ autobiography by gaining the perspective of a female slave. Besides just knowing that slaves get punished or receive little food or work so much, we learned that a female slave also faces problems of getting raped or sexually harassed. No one is able to help these female slaves who are facing these types of problems; in fact, their own will is the only thing they can rely on. Furthermore, once the wives of the master learn that their husbands are having an affair with their “properties”, they get jealous and the female slave is very likely to face more punishments.
1. Who do you think Jacobs envisions as the audience for her autobiography? How can you tell?
I think Jacobs envisions the audience for her autobiography as White women. I can tell since she is describing how being slave is bad, but being a woman slave is worse– they get raped, told dirty stuff, etc. By describing this, she is showing White women that their vulnerability (as women) is taken advantage of heavily as a slave. She wants White women to feel some sort of sympathy since they know how unfairly women are treated.
3. How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Jacobs attempts to control her own destiny through different resilient actions against slavery. The very first thing she does is that she started a relationship with Mr. Sands, in spite of Dr. Flint’s pursuit of her. This is something that I think very few slaves in her position would pursuit, for fear of mistreatment from Dr. Flint.
She has two children that are Mr. Sands’ and upon hearing that she and her children will be broken in as slave hands, resigns herself to hiding in an attic while watching and hoping her children are sold to Mr. Sands. They are, and she watches them through this window for seven years, waiting for their father to grant them freedom. This is something that I find incredible and really defying of her circumstances. Rather than becoming a field hand, and subjecting her children to the harshness that they face, she would submit herself in this attic, in a crouched position, but knowing her children are safe. When she realizes they won’t really be freed from their father, Jacobs finally escapes to the North by boat and is reunited with her daughter, and finds a job there. I am happy Harriet got to see her daughter, and she was able to escape, demonstrating that she would no longer be held under Dr. Flint’s control.
4. Jacobs writes, “the influences of slavery…had made me prematurely knowing concerning the evil ways of the world.” What do you think she means here?
I believe Harriet Jacobs means by “the influences of slavery…had made me prematurely knowing concerning the evil ways of the world” is that how such an act that is slavery can not only just create evil but the influence alone can create destroy the mindset of society. For example, during Harriet Jacobs’s time, she explains her upbringing as being a female slave and how it was considered the norm for how they were treated. This is where she explains the overall premise that is the influence slavery has on the world and when she prematurely knows the concerns, it shows when evil becomes an influence it becomes the norm.
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
I think Jacobs adds to the understanding of the experience of slavery from a woman’s point of view. At a very young age she is being sexually abused by her master, something that most men as slaves don’t endure in slavery. She explains how a mother is separated from their children and how heart breaking it is to be separated them when her children are just babies. I think she just adds more details on how cruel slavery can be especially for women.
Jacobs envisions the audience to be white women from the north. She speaks from a women’s perspective since she was sexually abused and bore children with a white man which she watched from her hiding place inside a cupboard for 7 years. I could tell because she writes, “But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely!” This is signaling to the possible judgements she may receive as these women read her autobiography and inquire about her actions. Additionally, she says that not all slave women should be judged the same because each one has gone through different forms of dehumanization and deserves to be individualized and acknowledged accordingly.
2. What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
Jacob adds the perspective of women in slavery. Through her autobiography, the audience is demonstrated the flip side of what Frederic Douglass showed and revealed many aspects as to the way that slave women were treated. She exposes the way in which slave women were being raped, and as a result, they would become impregnated by the white slave masters. From this, the white master wives would become jealous and angry about their husband’s affairs with the slaves and would make things even worse for slave women. She also highlights the complex relationship between the slave mother and child in that the mother usually had a tight bond with their child and was almost always separated.