Harriet Jacob’s Hardships
“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” gives an elaborate chronicle of Harriet Jacobs, who was born into slavery in the Southern states of the present day United States of America. The girl, alongside her younger brother William, was left in the safe hands of her loving mistress upon the demise of her beloved mother. Unfortunately, the mistress passed away when Harriet was twelve years of age and Mr. Flint became her master thereafter. Despite all miseries and incessant torments she suffered in the hands of Mr.
Flint, Harriet Jacobs was determined to survive all the afflictions from her new master in a bid to gain her freedom from slavery as well as those of her children whom she feared might also bear the full brunt of slavery, if she did not do enough to protect them from the prevailing dehumanizing vise. After the death of her mistress, Harriet Jacobs was truly a dejected miserable girl.The real shock of her life was the realization that she was nothing but a slave. In the company of her brother, William, she never had a rosy life long after the untimely death of their loing mother and immediately after the demise of their motherly mistress. Accustomed to the warm environment provided by her loving care giver and mistress earlier on, Harriet met the shock of her life when she realized that she was a slave.
Things were so different to her in all spheres of life. Her liberty and freedom all vanished into the thin air of desperation. She is now under the full control and lives at the mercies of her master Mr. Flint.Typical as any other slave, Harriet was found any form of fulfillment in her daily life.
The mere thought that her children and she were property of Mr. Flint was quite cruel and inhuman, yet it was the reality she had to contend with. Mr. Flint would solicit sexual favors from her and further overworked her on a regular basis. These series of mistreatment imposed a perpetual bitterness in her inner world. Suffice it to say, Jacobs always wanted to escape from the hands of bully master, because of the slavery bondage she was subjected to all of a sudden.
Jacobs’s later life was marred with pity and bitterness until her freedom and freeddom of her children was bought back from her master Mr. Flint. She was never happy with her master’s abuses and tormenting reality that her children were designated to be slaves for the rest of their lives. Full of desire to free her children from future bondage of slavery, Jacobs escaped and ran away from her master as a quick mean to gain their freedom. Staying in the hole for seven solid years for the sake of avoiding slavery was not an easy task. Nevertheless, it accentuates horror that it entails to be a slave.
She lived in a hole under poor conditions.In conclusion, Jacobs’s experience of slavery after the death of her mistress was highly tormenting and cruel. Considering that she was feeling the actual effects of slavery for the first time at her teenage years, Jacobs’s life together with her children was never the same until their lives were bought from their cruel master. Thereafter, she lived a happy woman with her husband and children. To sum up, slavery was a common practice that violated the rights of innocent people, like Jacobs and her children in the history of Southern America.
