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Title: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Norton Critical Editions) by Frances Smith Foster, Nellie Y. McKay, Harriet A. Jacobs ISBN: 0-393-97637-8 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.78 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.78 (32 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful insight into the institution of slavery
Comment: This is without doubt one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. On a very touchy but ever pertinent subject, Harriet Ann Thomas' story of her life as a slave is a remarkable document of antebellum life in the US, both south and north. Unlike the patent attempt to play with the readers' emotions of fictional works like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself, is almost a graceful understatement. At the time it was apparently believed to be a work of fiction, but it lacks the florid style of the Nineteenth Century narrative.
I had expected to have problems reading the book. For one thing, I expected either a convoluted prose style or an offensive parody of slave dialect. I also anticipated a graphic description of the violence perpetrated on individuals considered chattel by their owners. Instead I found the work to have been clearly written. It is remarkable for the literacy of its author-Ms Thomas was taught to read and write by the first owner of her family-and the care with which it's editor, L. Maria Child, took to preserve the author's intentions. Dialect was introduced only where it furthered the narrative and where the individual was likely to have spoken in the manner described. Violence is described but not so graphically as to entirely put off the reader.
Instead of the sensationalism that might have been used to promote her cause, the author provides insight into the emotional losses, personal deprivations, and incredible uncertainty in the lives of the individuals enduring slavery. She emphasizes her point by demonstrating her willingness to undergo a seemingly unending imprisonment in an attic with only a tiny peep hole out onto the world rather than continue as a slave. The great sacrifices and risks that others assumed in order for her and others like her to escape to freedom in the north underscores the extent to which the vicissitudes of the institution created a network among those opposed to it and those oppressed by it. Most poignant is her description of New Years as being a time of great tribulation for the slave. Unlike the white members of southern society who looked forward to the new year with festivity and expectation, the slave family looked upon it as a tragedy waiting to happen. Rentals and sales of individuals on that day tore families apart, husbands from wives, children from parents, often never to be reunited or even heard of again, and no slave or slave family could ever feel they were entirely safe. Sadder still were those cases of slaves who had been promised their freedom by kinder owners, only to have these promises abrogated by the heirs or to discover that no actual paperwork had been put into motion prior to the death of the individual.
Ms Thomas also makes a strong case for the damage that slavery caused to white society as well. Just by relating her own experiences and those of people around her, she recreates the anger felt by white wives who discovered that their husbands had had children by slave women, the blunted feelings of white men who, no matter what their feelings for those children, were caught up in a society that punished them for "recognizing" any children by black mistresses, the poverty and anger of the average white wage earner caught in an economy where he had to compete with poorly maintained, unpaid labor in order to make a living, and so on. In short Ms Thomas makes it abundantly apparent that the institution of slavery dehumanized both the enslaver and the enslaved.
One thing especially of note is the author's observation that the north was hardly better. She was free, perhaps, but only free to be second class. While recognizing that slavery was incompatible with the institution of democracy, northerners were still, with rare exception, prejudiced against individuals of non-white background. I think a case could easily be made that it is the more silent prejudice of the north that has perpetuated the inequities that still plague the lives of non-white Americans today.
Rating: 5
Summary: A very poweful tale of the great injustice put on slaves.
Comment: I have read Incidents in the Life of a Slave by Harriet Jacobs, twice! I enjoyed reading her book. Her book is full of rich vocabulary. Her writing skills and the description of events she used was impressive, i.e. the separation of mother and child being sold to slaveholders, I felt the pain. In her writings, she constantly humbled herself because of her circumstances of being a slave and how she felt incompetent to write her life story. I must say that Jacobs did a magnificent job, considering her life of chattel slavery. Besides being courageous, strong and enduring, she was a very wise person. I think Jacob's does not give herself credit for being wise. She was very wise because she had to plan various strategies to outwit her devil master's attempts to capture her. She was wise in not trusting Harriet Beecher Stowe. What was Stowe's purpose of forwarding Jacob's writings to Mrs. Willis, which included her sexual history? Jacobs was no fool. Finally, the most indelible impression on my mind was when she hid in her grandmother's house, above the storage room, for seven years! I was right there with her. Great job Harriet Jacobs!!
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazing Account of Our History!!
Comment: Jacobs has contributed a wonderful document to our nation's history of her experiences as a slave. This is a must-read for anyone with an interest in our country's history!
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Title: The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois ISBN: 0486280411 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 20 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
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Title: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by Himself by Frederick Douglass, John W. Blassingame, John R. McKivigan, Peter P. Hinks, Gerald Fulkerson ISBN: 0300087012 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth ISBN: 048629899X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 29 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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Title: Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington ISBN: 0486287386 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 04 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
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Title: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson ISBN: 048628512X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 10 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
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