The connection that I chose is between Chandara and Harriet Jacobs. I want to mainly focus on the way they both want to make choices on their free will and not fall into someone else’s grasp. Whether it be the egregious act of slavery for Jacobs or the act of being opressed by his husband for Chandara. Both hate being controlled by a party which they can’t control. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacob is being pursued by her slave owner which she goes into hiding in an attic so small that she couldn’t even stand in. She continued to live there for several years “Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave” (Chapter 21). I was reminded of this audacious act when I was reading Punishment, Chandara was offered a way out of her death sentence if she would just listen to her husband. “Don’t worry- if you do what I tell you, you’ll be quite safe.” (pg 893) is what Chidam told Chandara, however despite that Chandara refuses to use his advice and much prefers death. We understood that there was previous tension between them causing them to have a fallout. Chidam just like Dr. Flint required full control of their women, and felt that their pride was being attacked when their women were getting out of control. This led Chandara and Jacobs to build up pent-up rage inside of them and when they finally got the chance to get away, they seized it. In both texts, we see how extremely oppressed Chandara and Jacobs were. They were being suffocated in their relationships and when someone gets pushed to the edge, they were both happy with going with the choice that they felt like they were in control of.
Tianhui, Thanks for this connection! This comparison of Chandara and Harriet Jacobs underscores the idea of self-determination. Even though one is a memoir and the other is fiction, in both texts, women seem to see living under the control of a man as an intolerable fate, and both are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid submitting to the men trying to control them.