Sunday, September 14, 2008
Chapters 1-4
In the first few chapters of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl the author Harriet Jacobs does an excellent job of portraying the different aspects of slavery to the reader. In the first chapter the readers learns how black mothers are devoted to their children. In the narrative, Linda Brent, a slave, describes her grandmother, who was forced to watch her son sold at the age of ten. Brent describes that instead of just passively accepting her fate, her grandmother did everything she could to reunite her family again. Jacobs illustrates the cruelty of the slave owners, in this case Dr. and Mrs. Flint. Near the end of chapter two Jacobs tells the story of a male slave who is nearly beaten to death. These are just a few examples of the way Jacobs illustrates slavery. What is so powerful about it is that the story is from a slave’s perspective. Linda presents a broad view when she describes stories about other slaves.
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Great summary of the first couple chapters. I agree with your point that Linda described a broader view of slavery through other people's stories, such as her grandmother's, brothers', father's, and mother's. It is interesting how you pulled specific examples out of the text that really signify Linda's hard life as a slave. In the case of the grandmother, I personally was amazed at how well they treated her on the plantations. In Chapter Five, part of the next reading, we discover that Dr. Flint was even scared of Linda's grandmother! Imagine that! A master afraid of his slave during this hard time!
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