Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself 609ily write false letters to Dr. Flint in order to make
him think that she is free in the North. At the end
of the narrative, Linda escapes to the North with her
children, and Mrs. Bruce, her employer, ultimately
buys her freedom for $300. The narrative was pub-
lished with a foreword by Lydia Maria Child, and
it implores its imagined audience, white northern
women, to use their moral influence to assist the
abolitionist cause.
Courtney D. Marshall
Gender in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs,
an escaped slave, documents the sexual abuse she
underwent while enslaved and her dramatic escape
in which she spent seven years imprisoned in a garret
above her grandmother’s house. Though the book is
autobiographical and by definition self-affirming,
Jacobs chooses to hide her identity behind the name
Linda Brent, because she believes that making her
story public, while imperative, is not a usual activ-
ity for a woman. Jacobs’s narrative is different from
other slave narratives because it takes as its focus the
issues of female enslavement and the particular tri-
als that women face. Her story focuses on the rights
of women to protect their bodies and families and
to keep their children. Throughout her narrative,
she describe struggles for freedom in which women
play major roles. Incidents is also unique in that it
addresses a specific audience—white female readers
in the North—and speaks for black women still held
in bondage.
In the opening of Incidents, Harriet Jacobs makes
it clear that she is writing her book to an audience of
white northern women. At this time, women could
not vote, but, according to the gender ideology of
the time, they could effect moral change in their
male relatives who could. Jacobs attempts to bridge
the gap between free white northern women and
herself by making a series of critical comparisons.
She compares her experiences with first love with
that of her readers, asserting the futility of the slave
woman ever finding love with someone who respects
her. Later, she asks her northern reader to compare
her New Year’s Day with that of the slave woman
who sits in her cold cabin with her children waiting
to see if any or all of them will be sold away from
her the next day. According to 19th-century gender
standards, motherhood was very important. Slave
women were not allowed to have control over their
bodies or their children, and in this example, Jacobs
hopes that by appealing to her readers as mothers
they will find further commonalities with her and
want to effect change.
Jacobs realizes that because she is a slave, she
cannot experience girlish innocence, motherhood, or
romantic love without being worried about the slave
system taking them away; her circumstances lead
her to make choices that put her at odds with gender
conventions. Enslaved women and their children
could be separated at any time; even if they belonged
to the same owner, strict labor policies and planta-
tion regulations severely limited the development
of the mother-child relationship. In an era when
women were not supposed to talk about sex, she says
she was prematurely aware because of the foul words
Dr. Flint begins to whisper in her ear. She prays to
die in order to escape Dr. Flint’s advances, particu-
larly after he builds a house for her in the woods
and orders her to live there. The most controversial
decision she makes in order to escape Dr. Flint is to
become involved with Mr. Sands, a visiting white
politician, and to have two children with him. She
believes that Dr. Flint will be jealous of her love and
finally stop harassing her; however, this is not the
case. Dr. Flint threatens Linda by promising harm
to her children; because she wants to protect her
children from Flint, she decides to escape.
Throughout the narrative, Jacobs holds herself
out for judgment by her readers, but repeatedly
argues that enslaved women should be held to a dif-
ferent moral standard. At the same time, she argues
that the slave system is inherently criminal because
it keeps her from fulfilling her ideas of true woman-
hood. Because she is a slave, she cannot have a stable
marriage with a man who supports her, a home pro-
tected by law, or literacy that would allow her to read
the Bible and share its teachings with her children.
The institution of slavery also distorts standards
of masculinity. Dr. Flint, Linda’s master, is depicted
as a lascivious, godless man who pursues her for
decades, and Mr. Sands reneges on his promise to
free them. At the same time, her uncle and brother
are punished and imprisoned for asserting their