Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl-Yanyan Chen
- In her essay Incidents in the Life of a Slave, Jacobs sheds a light on the real living condition and reality of a female slave’s life. For me, this narrative emphasizes the misery of the women slaves by revealing their experience of being insulted, taken apart from their children and etc. I come to know that women tend to suffer more than men because not only does she have to obey her master and do all the household things, but also her beauty will put her in more dangerous condition given that white female will degrade her more deeply. Also, I feel astonished that Harriet Jacobs stay in a tiny den that even doesn’t provide her room to stretch her limbs for whole SEVEN years! During this quarantine period, I am almost crazy after staying in my room for 20 days, although I can stretch my arms and legs and breath fresh air. I cannot imagine how can she survive in that situation. Perhaps it’s her love towards her children that supports her to live in this world. Then, I’d say she is the greatest mother in the world and she definitely deserve the lucky freedom afterwards. This essay is more like a diary than a formal narrative story compared to that of Douglass. In addition, there is less whip and severe punishment in her narrative. However, both of them (Douglass and Jacobs) are “luck” to some extent compared to other poor slaves that they meet some kind white people who are willing to help them. Douglass meets his mistress who is nice at first to teach him ABC and those white boys in Baltimore who teach him more words. Jacobs meet Mr. Sands and Mrs. Bruce who buys her freedom at the end!
- Many posts already mention some forms of contemporary slaves such as forced labor, forced marriage and child labor. For me, white collar workers who are controlled by their employer should also catch our attention. Although it’s hard to define as modern slavery, it does involve exploitation. In some underdeveloped countries where the labor law is not executed accordingly, this kind of exploitation is quite common. Employees work nearly 18 hours a day, seven days a week and many of them end up with cardiac death.
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Yanyan, Thanks for these helpful insights. I agree that it’s particularly powerful to read about Harriet Jacobs’ seven years in hiding while we are complaining after a few weeks of social distancing. You also raise good questions about labor practices in general, reminding us that, even in the absence of actual slavery, many workers are exploited by their employers and lack basic legal protections.