Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Essay Example

Nevertheless, there is a woman who has been through better situations as a slave during her childhood that influenced and shaped her life which she revealed in her autobiography. Harriet Jacobs was born in a slave family but was raised with so much love and good bearing. She enjoyed the love her mother who unfortunately died while Jacobs was still young. She was also lavished with the care and concern of her grandmother who seemed to have thought of nobody else but her family. Moreover, she was also privileged to have such a wonderful mistress who taught her how to read and write.

These early experiences shaped her to become a respected slave girl who was not only praise-worthy for her work but also for her principles and wit. She later became known among the slaves to be able to read and write that her help was often sought. For instance, there was a time when rumors were heard that there are white men who were interested in helping slaves. With the desire of every slave to gain his freedom, they wanted to verify the information. However, as slaves, they were not able to read.

Therefore, they asked Jacobs to read the papers for them and help them to know more about the help being offered. In addition, there was also a Black man who sought her to teach him how to read and write because he wanted to read the Bible. However, such advantages were not the only things that the author encountered. There were so many difficulties that she went through which made her decide to do things which she might not have don under better or different circumstances. First, when she was used by her master as a sex object, being abused not only physically but emotionally and psychologically, she despised him so much that she extremely wanted to have her freedom.

With her master not wanting to sell her though, she was hard-pressed on a decision that she thought would become her way of escape. She decided to bear children for a white man who showed goodness to her however, this proved to be of no help at all. Instead, it became a source of more burdens as she now have the responsibilities of protecting and providing for her children. This shows the difficult situations which could drive slaves to do unimaginable things that they would have never thought about.

Initially, Jacobs sought to free herself from the loathsome treatments of her masters, with the male sexually taking advantage of her and the wife being angry and intensely suspicious and jealous of her. However, instead of freeing herself, she made her situation more complicated by having children with a white man. Filled with jealousy and anger, her master never wanted to give her up to other masters although the wife would have gladly released her. Although Jacobs’ intentions were good, she failed to consider that her master would still continue to be very possessive of her despite what she did.

Consequently, she was never given the freedom she desired instead, brought her more misery because her master used the children as instruments to keep her as his possession as a revenge to her. Despite her sufferings though, Jacobs never gave up but braved the thought of abandoning her children to her grandmother’s care if only to prevent them from eternally suffering in the hands of her old master. When she heard that it was planned that her masters were to bring her children to her dwelling place, she ran away and hid herself in the residence of a trusted friend.

Although she and her family have been through a lot