Harriet Jacobs:  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Impact

Jacobs confessed in letters to her friend Post that she felt some reticence about committing her life story to paper, largely because it would deal with the sexual exploitation of slaves and because she would have to make known her own status as an unwed mother. It was for these reasons that she created the fictional persona Linda Brent, who narrates the story. The book differed from other slave narratives of the era in its focus on two major themes regarding the female narrator’s life, as that of a “fallen woman” and as that of a heroic woman who keeps her children from falling prey to chattel slavery. Notably, the book accordingly uses two different styles: When Jacobs is discussing her efforts on behalf of her children, she writes in a direct, pointed style. When the subject turns to sexual exploitation and her own sexual history, the style becomes more indirect and elevated, similar to the style of much popular fiction from the time. The fact that Jacobs’s narrative was written by a woman was alone a distinguishing factor. The slave narratives of writers such as Frederick Douglass and Solomon Northup focus on the largely solitary efforts of a heroic man. Jacobs, on the other hand, embedded her narrative in more of a social context that includes family relationships and friendships both within and outside the black community.

Some readers found the book too unbelievable to be true and accused the author of exaggerating and fictionalizing for sensational effect. Some thought that the book had to have been written by a white woman, and some scholars continue to suggest that Child had more of hand in shaping and even writing the book than she admitted. Jacobs, though, tried to counter these reactions by insisting on its veracity. In an appendix, Post bore witness to the book’s truth. So, too, did an African American Bostonian named George W. Lowther, who after the Civil War would be elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and who wrote of the book,

However it may be regarded by the incredulous, I know that it is full of living truths. I have been well acquainted with the author from my boyhood. The circumstances recounted in her history are perfectly familiar to me. I knew of her treatment from her master; of the imprisonment of her children; of their sale and redemption; of her seven years’ concealment; and of her subsequent escape to the North.