Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs - Book Report/Review Example

The constitution of the female, black slave in Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl is an autobiography written by Harriet Jacobs who disguised herself as the protagonist called Linda Brent. It is her personal account of her life as a black slave girl in America. This essay takes the stand that the traditional constitution of the female slave in black slavery stereotypes them to receive ill treatment with total disregard for the dignity of the female slave. This constitution refers to the informal, customary arrangement that defines the permissible allowances accorded to the female black slave. The female slave is stereotyped to receive treatment as a subordinate rank. (Moon 455). Female slaves were expected to surrender completely to their owners. They are sexually violated, humiliated and face farther humiliation if they dare to speak up against their treatment. Jacobs' book is her mode of public speaking against slavery and the subordinate rank of female slaves which denied them any rights. Brent calls out an open plea to the free men and women of the north to labor to advance the cause of humanity. (Jacobs 33). Jacobs writes her novel to illustrate how her personal loss of sexual dignity is exemplary of a greater loss; 'They (women) take their individual losses as exemplary of larger ones, in particular the failure of the law and nation to protect the sexual dignity of women from the hybrid body of patriarchal official and sexual privilege.' (Moon 458). Jacobs has devoted an entire chapter, 'The Trials of Girlhood' on this argument. The experiences are typical of what the young black, female slaves face. Brent narrates that; 'In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage.' (Jacobs 30-31). Both the female black slave and female white mistress are stereotyped to allow only subordinate ranks and cannot object to the man of the house. The subordinate role of the female slave is but an invention of the white slave master. Brent hates to be a slave and desires to defeat her master. She narrated; 'I was determined that the master, whom I so hated and loathed, who had blighted the prospects of my youth, an made my life a desert, should not, after my long struggle with him, succeed at last in trampling his victim under his feet.' Many of the injustices stem from racism, patriarchal, heterosexism, misogyny, economic privilege and politics in America. Jacob's testimony is a specific one and there is difficulty in accepting her experiences as the representative of the national identity of Afro-Americans. One way to overcome this setback is to use juridical inflexion of the personal testimony. Sexual knowledge of Jacob's patriarchal sexual advances become a register for systemic relations of power. Jacobs used persuasion and other counterintelligence to fight for sexual dignity. The established custom or informal constitution of the female slave does not accord recognition of the rights of the female slave against sexual violations from her master. Brent had been persecuted by Dr. Flint and thus she plotted her revenge, escape and thwarting of her cruel master. However, Dr. Flint refuses to relent nor sell her away and continues to torment Brent by exerting his commands over her. He further humiliated Brent by reprimanding her in front of her younger brother William. Dr. Flint is guilty of racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, misogyny, misusing his economic privilege and politics. Brent continues to fight Dr. Flint and disproves that her gender is a stereotype to receive subordination from the white male slave owner. Female slaves who are mothers are stereotyped to accept grief when their children are sold or sent away from them. Brent narrates the heartache of the black slave mothers who are forcibly separated from their children; 'She maybe an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies.' (Jacobs 18). The whites expect the slave mothers to accept their lot in slavery and not rebel. Brent's grandmother labored at her part-time business to save cash to buy back her son Phillip as a rebellion against the separation. To understand the grief, consider the example of the woman whose seven children were sold away. She cried out for God to kill her in her immense grief. (Jacobs 18). The slave cannot be stereotyped as accepting the separation of her children. The female black slave is not a stereotype. She has a community with its own hierarchy. Brent's grandmother is a matriarch in the black slave community. Grandmother Molly Horniblow was popular and respected as 'Aunty Marthy'. She was not afraid to speak her mind. Dr Flint was mindful of her and avoided generating gossip to preserve his reputation because; 'Bad as are the laws and customs in a slave-holding community, the doctor, as a professional man, deemed it prudent to keep up some outward show of decency.' Dr. Flint refrained from open pursuit of Brent. (Jacobs 32). Brent was very grateful for her grandmother's protection as well as living in a community where distinctive social hierarchy makes inhabitants mind their behaviors. The constitution of the female slaves bestows a stereotype which discourages them to speak. Hodes' research says that; 'Harriet's versions of her master's verbal actions may have stood in for the literally unspeakable physical sexual abuse she suffered at his hands.' (Hodes 154). Brent does not even dare to confide in her closest relative, her grandmother, that she is expecting her first child. It was only after Dr. Flint confronts her about moving into an isolated cottage that Brent speaks to reveal that she is an expectant mother. Molly Horniblow is initially angry with Brent but after she confesses her years of silent hardship under her master, the wise, elderly lady pitied her. Brent thought that her silence might help her to avoid serious problems with Dr. Flint but he has taken advantage of her stereotyped silence to continue his immoral pursuit of her. The constitution of female slaves forces them into confine into a stereotype that denies them the patriarchal protection of their male slave counterparts and other free white or colored men. (Hodes 156). Brent fails to obtain help from her male suitors due to the lack of legal intervention to force Dr. Flint to release her in a sale. The black male slaves cannot protect their womenfolk; 'Some poor creatures have been so brutalized by the lash that they will sneak out of the way to give their masters free access to their wives and daughters.' (Jacobs 49). The male slaves are humiliated and robbed of their manhood by subjecting themselves to degradation and prostituting their women and daughters. It is an irony that the white master who persecutes the female slave is also the one who can giver her protection. The stereotype of a black female slave is a weak, defenseless, subjugate woman. (Jacobs 46). The stereotype female black slave is expected to succumb to sexual corruption. Brent says that; 'When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission to their will.' (Jacobs 57). This is the constitution of black female slavery. She explains that everyone in the master's household is affected by the unclean influences in the environment and they learn quickly by example. The slaveholder is tempted by the power of slavery and this makes them cruel and promiscuous. The slave master's sons are influenced by the examples of the father or older men folk and are tempted to taste the indulgences too. The white daughters are tempted by the availability of the opposite sex who are servile black slaves. The white wives are miserable with their husbands who father colored children but they are unable to do anything in the patriarchal society. Brent says that the root of these problems come from slavery. Slavery gives the stereotypes to slaves. The constitution of the black female slavery does not give any rights to the children of female slaves. The female slave who bears children with her master, black husband or any white husband, has no rights to her children for they, too, belong to her master. If the white slave holder is the father, the children are often not acknowledged by the natural father. They are not allowed to take the father's surname. When Brent has a child by her white friend, Mr. Sands, she does not dare allow her child to take his name for fear that Dr. Flint would take revenge upon Mr. Sands. Brent says that even the church would not accept the white man's name. (Jacobs 87). This stereotyped inheritance of slavery allows very little recourse for change. The constitution of slavery created a stereotyped black, female slave who was underexposed to the social ills of slavery which caused her to succumb to her white master's seduction. The literary scholar Zafar says even when the rest of the world were underexposed to the social ills of female black slavery, after the publication and popularization of Jacobs' book, they become overexposed. (Garfield & Zafar 2). The debate over the authenticity of an individual's account also helped to fuel interest in the book. There have been many follow up literature that collaborate or refute Jacobs' narrative. It does not matter if the literature has advanced Jacobs' claims as her book receives exposure with each mention. Brent says that 'What I would have done for my liberty I am willing to do for theirs, whenever I can see them ready to fill a freeman's grave, rather than wear a tyrant's chain.' (Jacobs 259). This book is part of her efforts to expose the great injustices of black female slavery. Thus, Brent breaks away from the stereotype of the silent, suffering, female black slave. Is disobedience a stereotype trait of the resistance from the black female slave Garfield and Zafar claim that it is not. They say; 'More specifically, the comparison is designed to show how each writer's engagement with the problem of disobedience reflects a larger attempt to grapple with the conceptual premises of liberalism.' (Garfield & Zafar 234). Brent resisted with her disobedience because she has always longed to be free. The accounts of the slaves who resisted ill treatment sometimes had stories of their disobedience by running away. Brent has a strong will and she disobeyed Dr. Flint's order to submit to his will because she thought that slavery should not encroach upon the private domains of sexual relations. The constitution of slavery did not triumph over Brent in some ways. Brent narrates that; 'Whatever slavery might do to me, it could not shackle my children. If I fell a sacrifice, my little ones were saved.' (Jacobs 122). Brent proved that by resistance and disobedience to the stereotypes of slavery, she accomplished liberty for her children and herself later. The constitution of the female slave does not help the women but Brent shows that her determination brings a successful change. Works Cited. Garfield, Deborah M. & Zafar, Rafia. Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: New Critical Essays. USA: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hodes, Martha. Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History. By Martha Elizabeth Hodes. USA: NYU Press, 1999. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. USA: Penguin Books, 2000. Moon, Michael. Subjects and Citizens - P: Nation, Race, and Gender from Oroonoko to Anita Hill. USA: Duke University Press, 1995. Read More