During the mid to late 1800’s, the United States of America was experiencing civil strife between the Northern states and the Southern states. One of the major conflicting issues between the two sides was their opinion on slavery. The South mainly...

Harriet Jacobs was the first African American woman to author a slave narrative in the United States. Her autobiographical novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was originally published under the pseudonym Linda Brent. The story follows ‘...

During the Victorian Period, women were "strongly encouraged to adopt attributes of purity, domesticity, and submissiveness" (Bland, Jr. 120). These values and ideals were projected into the writing of many different forms of female-directed...

Beyond the brutalities that all slaves endured, females suffered the additional anguish of sexual exploitation and the deprivation of motherhood. In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Harriet Jacobs focuses on racial subjugation but also...

In Harriet Jacobs’ historically renowned narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the story of Linda Brent’s struggles as a slave woman help to shed light on the unrealistic standards placed on women during the nineteenth century. As...

Harriet Jacobs’ moving text Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an incredible narrative chronicling the story of a slave named Linda and her resilient fight for freedom. However, as she takes us through her journey, we come to see that the...

Throughout Harriet Jacobs’ powerful and informative autobiography, Christianity is repeatedly mentioned as a direct and indirect influence on the episodes of her life as an enslaved woman. Jacobs depicts religion amongst the enslaved as an...

The epithet “the Land of the Free” is a distinctive phrase commonly associated with America, a country that prides itself for awarding its people with equal opportunity and the freedom to pursue their dreams. Yet, American literature does not seem...

When students learn about abolition, they are typically introduced to significant texts written by historical literary figures such as Fredrick Douglass and William Wells Brown. However, the slave narrative genre is overwhelmingly comprised by...

One difference between the slave and neo-slave narrative is the relationship of the audience to the text’s protagonist. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs cannot address her audience from equal grounds; because of her...