Incidents of a Slave Girl

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Book Review

7/14/2008

This paper will briefly examine several of the themes which Harriet Jacobs presents in her autobiography concerning life as a slave in the 19th century.

In the middle of the 19th century, one brave woman took on the task of informing the nation of the conditions of slavery in the south. This woman was Harriet Jacobs and it was through her autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl which she is able to show the terrible and corrupting nature of slavery, not only to the slaves, but to the slave owners as well. Throughout her book, Jacobs revels several common themes regarding the lives and conditions of slaves, obviously using her own life as the primary example. Two of the most prominent themes are those of psychological abuses of slaves and the corrupting power of slavery to a person’s morality and ethical standards. “Slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks” (45) says Jacobs. Through her writings, Jacobs is able to demonstrate how slavery is destructive throughout southern civilization and why this terrible tradition cannot be allowed to spread to new states.

In her book, Jacobs changes her name and uses the alias of “Linda”, not out of a need of secrecy or hiding, but more to protect the honor of the people she was writing about. This is an interesting development on the part of the author since she has described a slave as a person who does not develop many ethical standards, not out of anger and hate, but simply because they are not given the chance to develop under the umbrella of slavery. The author had been free from slavery for nearly three decades by the time she wrote the book, perhaps this in conjunction with the few kind slave-owners she had and her loving grandmother allowed her to develop such a deep respect for others despite their faults.

Tradition Corrupts

In the book, Jacobs spends much time attempting to prove that even the most benevolent...