Close Reading for Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Essay Example

Close Reading Essay for “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Towards the beginning of the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl there is asentence which encapsulates in its structure and in its substance some of the main themes which are later explored in the narrative told by “Linda”, a pseudonym for Hariet Jacobs herself: “The slave child had no thought for the morrow, but there came that blight, which too surely waits on every human being born to be a chattel.” (Jacobs, 1987, p. 7)Instead of using the first person pronoun “I” in this sentence, the author uses the much more general phrase “the slave child” and this makes it clear that she sees her own childhood as being typical of the situation of slaves in general.

In a way her book is both a personal narrative about her own experiences, and at the same time a depiction of the universal nature of slavery, and how it affected all African Americans of her generation. The next phrase, “had no thought for the morrow” depicts a state of purity and innocence, which Linda Brent enjoyed as a very young child. The language of the words “the morrow” instead of “tomorrow” is old-fashioned, which is in tune with the historical setting of the book. Generally in literature children could be expected to continue in this carefree state until adulthood, but the middle of the sentences introduces a sudden break in the reader’s expectatioins with the word “but.

” Using alliteration on the letter “b”, this part of the sentence emphasizes the words but, blight, being and born. These words combine to describe the shocking realization that the young Linda Brent came to, when she realized that there was such a thing as slavery, and that she was destined to fulfil the role of slave. As if to underline this point, the hopeful and positive word child at the start of the sentence is contrasted vividly, again using alliteration, with the negative word chattel.

All of the hope and promise of childhood comes to a bitter end with the realization that the child is just an object, at the mercy of others, and not free to develop in the way that she had anticipated. The rest of the book describes the journey that Linda Brent made in her eventful life, being bought and sold, and repeating the cycle of dispossession as she watches her own children suffer the same fate as she did. This sentence announces the important theme of fatalism which runs through the whole narrative.

The author recognizes the inevitability of slavery and all the negative implications for children born as slaves, but she does not meekly accept it. This resistance is conveyed in the statement referring to slavery as is a blight which “too surely waits” on such infants. She imagines a world which is different, and less constrained for African American children. She struggles against the burden of fate that condemns her to make bitter compromises in order to survive. Thus in one single sentence, Harriet Jacobs gives a foretaste of what is to come, conveying the sense of injustice that she feels in having been destined to grow up as a slave.

ReferencesJacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Boston, 1861. Reprinted, Harvard University Press, 1987.