— Onima Shah
Although the book is more of a personal diary for Jacobs, I think that her story often reads as a novel because of the extremities of the events that she describes. While I was reading the book, I assumed it was a novel because the events that she was describing seemed to be exaggerated or almost fictitious. The reason for this was not to undermine her experiences as a slave, but that I, along with any others, found some of the events to be so surprising that it did not seem real. However, this actually was the reality that Jacobs and other slaves had faced. It is shocking that there were people that can inflict this type of pain and abuse onto other people against their will for their own personal gain. Linda points out that the institution of slavery is degrading to not only those enslaved, but the slaveowners as well. The point that she makes about slavery is not something I personally thought about before, so reading her viewpoint on this was quite eye-opening. Linda saying that slave owners also have a negative impact from slavery because it dehmanizes them as well is a revolutionary statement because slaves at the time were forced to think that they were inferior to their slave owners. It is not very common for enslaved people like Linda to think that they are better, despite their circumstances, as many enslaved people would not consider this to be true. Religion is an important part of slave owners controlling slaves because it makes them think that it was God’s will for their circumstances to be the way that it is. A majority of slaves were illiterate, hence they could not simply pick up a Bible and read for themselves. Illiteracy was another important factor for slave owners to control their slaves, as slaves could not read to understand what the full extent of their situation really was. Jacobs and Frederick Douglass were one of the few who were lucky enough to be able to read and write, hence they had a better understanding of the dehumanization and harmful practice of slavery.
