Introduction
In 1981, under the pseudonym Linda Brent, Harriet Jacobs wrote a book addressing the living in the Northern States people’s indifference towards slavery in the Southern ones. Her stories focus on the life of enslaved girls, women, and mothers, who were facing various challenges on a permanent basis. This writing was used as an abolitionist tool, as Jacobs constantly refers to free women of the North who did not want to somehow change the established slavery systems in other states. Therefore, the thesis of this essay is that women living in the South had very tough specifics of their lives as slaves, whereas the Northern girls were free and did now feel the burden to change the establishments.
The Slaves’ New Year’s Day
In the story regarding Christmas Eve and New Year itself, the author describes the life of slaves during this (some may define as a “holly”) period of time. According to Jacobs, it is January 1, when the hiring day is usually taking place. Hiring day stands for the time when masters are choosing and buying slaves for the works on farms, fields, and in houses. As a rule, on January 2, slaves are already expected to go to new places and meet new masters. As Jacobs (III) puts it: “to the slave mother New Year’s day comes laden with peculiar sorrows.” These women always know that during January 1, her children will be sold to one or several masters and taken away from her. Jacobs (III) cites the words of such a mother: “Gone! All gone! Why don’t God kill me?”. Thus, the story shows the endless sorrow and grief that enslaved women were meant to face during the holiest time of the year, and therefore, supports the central thesis of the paper.
Moreover, in her story, Jacobs emphasizes the contrast between the women living in the South and North. Jacobs (III) speaks to the former: “O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year’s day with that of the poor bondwoman!”. Throughout the whole story, one can trace the message to the free women, who, from the author’s perspective, need to act to change the treatment of their sisters. Jacobs describes the happiness that free mothers share with their children during Christmas Eve, how they give presents to them, and emphasizes that nothing and no one are able to take their children away. Thus, this constant contrast provided by the author explains why this book, including the story regarding the New Year for enslaved, was used as an abolitionist tool.
The Trials Of Girlhood
In another story of the book, the author shows the challenges of enslaved young girls. Jacobs (V) highlights: that turning into the “fifteenth year — a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl,” especially a beautiful one, because of sexual harassment that she starts to meet. It is a dreadful story in which a teenage girl cannot even share her concerns with her own grandmother because of the strict punishment that they both can face. Sexual abuse from the master is a common practice that young slaves experience in the Southern States, and no one can help them to cope with this. Moreover, it is not also about the physical abuse, but also about the psychological one: “a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature,” telling a girl that she was his “property” (Jacobs, V). Thus, the author emphasizes another crucial challenge of being enslaved women. Mothers are being taken away from their own children, girls are being harassed without an opportunity to speak, and they all were treated as inanimated objects without any natural rights.
Moreover, as in all stories, there is a message to the Northern women, who are free and live without the constant fear of punishments and death because of natural actions. Jacobs (V) asks: “in view of these things, why are ye silent, ye free men and women of the north?”. She also praises those people who are trying to establish justice and working on the fair future of humanity, probably, meaning the abolitionist movement. In this regard, the citations driven from Jacob’s stories truly justify the thesis of this essay. The book about enslaved women is targeted at the changing establishments and was supposed to use abolitionists to show the discriminatory nature of the ideological division between the North and the South.
Conclusion
The collection of stories “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” written by Harriet Jacobs was hard to be treated as just a narrative about the experience the author got during the enslaved past. Jacobs wanted to change the lives of numerous women who were still lacking the freedom and natural rights, harassed and abused by their masters. The author did not elaborate much on the specific works that they were doing in the farms and fields; instead, she mostly focuses on the psychological side of this burden to be a slave. Jacobs’s stories were meant to be used by the abolitionists, as they described the difference between the North and the South.
Work Cited
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Boston, 1861. The Project Gutenberg.