— Anonymous
The book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs was written about her life as a slave and the transition to be free. She disguised her name as Linda in the book as she was still scared she would be discovered. Even if she is free we see that she really isn’t. We see how Linda still does things out of habit because she is not use to the “free” life. Even though now she is technically free, she really isn’t. The PTSD as you put it will always be a part of her life and bring her back to those unpleasant times. In that way she will never be free, her memories will always hold her captive. I believe that this is what these last chapters are trying to convey. The reader would have already seen how horrible slavery is with the first ten chapters of course, but they may reason once they are free everything is good right? WRONG! Slavery is so degrading that even if you come out of it, you will never be able to live a normal life. The constant fear, the memories, old habits… these will hold you a slave forever. An example of this is how Linda is always worrying that somebody might recognize her and report her to Dr. Flint. Constantly having to look over your shoulder your whole life is not a life anyone should be living. Overall this book was very powerful and even if it didnt get it’s point across at that time because of ignorance, Jacobs can have hope now that history will not repeat itself because the experiences she wrote about are well known today.
