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. What is “the loophole of retreat?”
21 thoughts on “Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”
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How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Harriet Jacobs allows a respectful white unmarried man impregnate her at the age of fifteen. She does this because it is the road to hope and being treated well by this man who is kind and caring and sympathetic unlike her slave master. Most of the time, young slave girls get raped by their slave masters and the mother and their children are neglected. Harriet Jacobs chooses to let this happen because it gives her a way to dictate who approaches her and knows that the alternative, being raped by a slave master, would be damaging to both her psyche and her children. With this option, she found a man who will treat her well and give their children a decent lifestyle compared to other children of little slave girls.
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
Jacobs adds the point of view of a woman in her slave narrative. She, through the use of inuendos, provides insight into the world of sexual abuse as a slave. She gives the reader an understanding of how torturous it was to experience that kind of treatment by explaining her preference of living in a tiny enclosed space rather than live in her past conditions. Her fear of being found by her master was much more severe than that of Douglass’s. She wanted him to have absolutely no trace of her to the point where she stayed hidden in terrible conditions for a whole of 7 years. Douglass feared the actions against him, but he explained that they were punishments known to every slave. Jacobs knew that all women of slavery experienced this, but she made it known that it was more severe than any whipping she could receive.
How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Jacobs attempts to control her own destiny by developing the romantic relationship between she and the white unmarried gentleman. I think this is an important event to further emphasis Jacobs’ desire of being free. “Being free” does mean being free physically, but rather emotionally. As a young slave girl, she was torture by her master, and her body was full of control by her owner. However, this cannot hamper her true feeling toward the man she loves. I also think getting into the relationship with that white unmarried gentleman is also a way for Jacobs to justify her rights. Even though she was unable to get a full control of herself, the only right that she possesses is her feeling, an intangible emotion that Jacobs remains in the deep of her heart.
2. What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
Jacobs adds how she experienced the tragedy of a female slave to live in the unequal society, even though they claimed that “all men are created equal”. She uses her story as a female slave to catch the audience’s sympathy, especially the white females. Jacobs is a black woman. She cannot do anything besides hiding from her master. Unlike Douglass, she describes how terrible the conditions is when she is trying the escape.
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
Jacobs adds to the understanding we have of slavery by providing us with insight on the lives of female slaves. She sheds light on the double standard placed upon them: both as slaves and as women. In Douglass’ case, we were exposed to slavery in the barbaric and inhumane sense; witnessing the cruelty and mistreatment imposed on slaves. In Jacobs’ case she does the same, but she also speaks on what happens when young girls are viewed as a possession in both a proprietary and sexual manner.
2. What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
Jacobs adds her view as a female slave. She uses her story to tell us the situation and life of the female slave under the slavery. Female slaves are treated worst than the male slaves. They are abused mentally and physically by their masters. Most of them will be raped by their masters in a very young age. They do not have a way to escape from this destiny. They desires love and marriage like those white women have.
1. Who do you think Jacobs envisions as the audience for her autobiography? How can you tell?
I think Jacobs envisions white christian women as the audience for her autobiography because in several instances she makes reference to how she does not want to be judged for what she did because she did not really have a choice. She says that most black women do not have a choice, they wish to remain chaste but they are usually sexually abused by their masters. Jacobs was one of the many slaves who were sexually abused. She writes that her master started abusing her from a very young age. She was not able to keep her virtue and this troubles her very much.
How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Harriet Jacobs attempted to control her own destiny by falling in love with a white man. Female slaves were usually raped by their slave masters and are forced to stay with them. The slave masters didn’t treat the female slaves any better than they did the male slaves. However, Jacobs was able able to get away from her slave master and had a family with a white man. The white man that impregnated Jacobs actually treated her with love and respect, something that Jacobs desperately wanted. Jacobs wanted to be with him not only because he treated her good but also that her and her future kids would be free from slavery.
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
She gave us a better understanding of what its like to be a female slave in that society. The lives they lived were even worse because of all the rape that went on and the physical/mental abuse these woman went under. She gave us a whole other light of slavery and all the different aspects that went into it in the life of a woman especially from a young age is truly disturbing
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
From Jacobs’s experience we know that female slaves suffer sexual abuse when they are very young, which has deeply hurt their mental health. They desire for love and marriage. She’s rather hide in a tiny little space for seven years than to come out to be abused by the master. From this we know that slaverys has greatly hurt their mental and phsical health. Compare to male slaves, male slaves are only mistreated and unhumanized. slavery has a great harm on the female slaves.
How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Jacobs attempts to control her own destiny by falling in love with a white, unmarried man. Seeing that she was always abused by her master and raped, she wanted a change someone who would treat her better. Jacobs ends up escaping from her horrible master and gets close to a white man. Here, we see how she controls her own destiny by getting pregnant for the white man creating a future family with him. We can infer that she not only wants to soon have freedom, but she always wants it for her child as well.
4. What is “the loophole of retreat?”
The loophole represents a place from which the poet can view the world’s misfortunes. Not so much for Linda, who experiences the loophole as a particularly intense form of slavery, so much that it becomes a symbol for the captivity of Southern slaves. Separated from her family, physically uncomfortable, voiceless, and so powerless that she can’t even move, Linda is getting a crash course in what slavery is like for the majority of slaves.
2. What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned
from Frederick Douglass?
Jacobs shows up the worse treatments of the female slaves than the male slaves. In her story, she not only gets the sexual abused but also be treated as animal. She works whole day to accomplish the master’s desire. They desire the love and marriage. Unlike the Douglass, she is keep hiding for his master.The damage for female slaves is huge from the mental to the body.
3. How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Jacobs attempts to control her own destiny by having a relationship with a white unmarried male. In her mind, it was a decision that she had full control over and it gave her power in a way. All her life she never had control over what she did. She couldn’t do things based on her own free will. By having children with this white male, she was able to gain more power over her own life and give her children a better life as well. Her owner also had to be more lenient on her since she was the woman of another white man. This decision was very beneficial to her and could be seen as her taking control of her destiny.
What does Jacobs add to the understanding of the experience of slavery we gleaned from Frederick Douglass?
Jacobs adds to the understanding of the experience of slavery as a woman. Sexual abuse was part of being a woman slave. Compared to the male slaves that we saw in Frederick Douglass’, males were not abused the same way as women were. I think it was a lot harsher on women because not only were they physically abused, but they were also going through mental inhumane abuse.
3. How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Jacobs attempts to control her destiny by deliberately letting a white man impregnate her. Despite being a slave, she believes in her freedom and expresses it through her body. Her body is her property and she shows that by letting the white man impregnate her rather than letting herself be forcefully raped. The man is nice and she believes that he will see to it that her children are not slaves.
1. Who do you think Jacobs envisions as the audience for her autobiography? How can you tell?
She wishes for white women of the north to read her autobiography in order to raise abolishinist sentiments. She works this by constantly juxtaposing the lives of her projected readers and her own. She speaks of her own corrupted mind and often tries to justify her actions in the terms of nineteenth century values. For example she tries to explain why she slept with her white neighbor. Any women would understand trying to find any tactic to avoid sexual and physical abuse and if that meant having premarital sex it could be justified.
How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Harriet Jacobs marries a white gentlemen that she falls in love with that gets her pregnant at the age of 15th. Unlike other slave women that used to get raped by their masters she decided to get pregnant it was her own free will. It shows that she wants to be free that she wants her kids to be treated like normally and not as slaves because they were half white. Harriet Jacobs tries to control her will of loving this man.
How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
In autobiography jacobs lets herself get pregnant by a white man. This is an example of how she tried to take control of her destiny because women were usually raped. By her willingly getting pregnant she took control of her destiny because she avoided getting raped. Her child was also going to be treated better than the children of slaves.
4. What is “the loophole of retreat?”
“The loophole of retreat” represents Linda’s bad and uncomfortable situation in the story. “The loophole of retreat” is suffocated small place in all situations. For example, she can see her children through the loophole but she cannot go outside of the loophole for 7years. She cannot move in the small room for 7 years.
3. How does Jacobs attempt to control her own destiny?
Jacobs attempts to control her own destiny by having relationship with a white man. Unlike other young female slavery who suffer sexual abuse, Jacobs has sex with neighbor white man of her own free will, which suggests her pregnancy can protect her and her child. Once she becomes wife of a white man, she and her child can have totally different life than being a slavery. Jacobs has limit fear of her choice by using her body to exchange her freedom. As a slavery, her body is her only property, not only works for her master, but has a white man’s child to control her own destiny.