9 June 2009
There is more to a person than what they appear to be. Every person has their own identity that is essentially developed through ethnicity, race, class, culture, and gender (Google “Define the terms”). Harriet Jacobs successfully uses identity to critique slavery in her narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Through Jacobs’ use of setting, the identities of her, other slaves, and slave owners become well developed and defined.
Harriet Jacobs’ writing delves into the depths of the experiences that made her who she was. Her status as an attractive, female, literate, African American slave in the 1800’s were not the only factors that created her identity. Her faith in God, the death of both of her parents, her caring Grandmother, and her devotion to freeing her children from the bonds of slavery all attributed to Harriet’s identity that can quickly be discovered when reading her narrative. The setting in which Harriet was raised was different than most slaves. She had a caring female master that taught her how to read and write. Most of her family was able to live on the same plantation and she was assigned house duties. To escape the lust of the master of the plantation she became pregnant by another well-to-do white male outside of wedlock. This went against her religious values and tore her down because it not only affected her but her family as well. “The painful and humiliating memory will haunt me to my dying day” (Jacobs 86). Jacobs said this in after thought of sleeping with a man out of wedlock and the shame she knew she had brought upon her ever-loving Grandmother. Her pregnancy and the children that resulted made a great impact on her identity as well. Once her children arrived she would have given anything to protect them from the harsh realities of slavery. “I want nothing for myself; all I ask is that you will free my children, or authorize some friend to do it, before you go” (Jacobs 191). This quote is taken from a conversation she had with Mr. Sands, the children’s father. In having this conversation she put herself in an extreme amount of danger by exposing herself from her hiding place, all in the hopes of freeing her children. The setting in which she was concealed for seven years also added to Jacobs identity. She longed to be able to speak to her children. She became consumed with her own thoughts with little interaction with the outside world. She began to appreciate the simple pleasures of health, sunlight, and the sound of her children’s laughter. Eventually she escaped to the North where she nannied for a couple and got to go to England for a stint. She found herself in a setting where African Americans were treated as people not as property. “Ensconced in a pleasant room, with my dear little charge, I laid my head on my pillow, for the first time, with delightful consciousness of pure, unadulterated freedom” (Jacobs 275). In this setting in England Harriet found what she had longed for all her life. Freedom. She was free to be whom she wanted and show, for the first time in her life, her true identity without fear of punishment.
In the setting of this narrative plantation owners did not see that African Americans had individual identities let alone the fact that they were people just like them. It is evident in Harriet Jacobs’ book that slaves knew that whites were oblivious to this fact. “Moreover, my mistress, like many others, seemed to think that slaves had no rights to any family ties of their own; that they were created merely to wait upon the family of the mistress” (Jacobs 59). Throughout the book Harriet introduces the reader to many slaves and slave activities that obliterate the notion that they had no identity. Some common activities among the slaves was to hold their own church meetings, they had their own burial grounds, they raised their own families, and they created extensive escape plans more clever than their masters could have even imagined. Slaves fell in love, and felt heart ache, which many masters could not comprehend. Slaves earned their own money and saved for ages in hopes to be able to buy a relative or friend’s freedom. “His strongest wish was to purchase his children; but, though he several times offered his hard earnings for that purpose, he never succeeded” (Jacobs 11). Jacobs said this of her father who worked his whole life and created his own business but was never able to buy the freedom of either her or her brother. If slaves had no identity and were purely property, as plantation owners deceived themselves to believe, then no slave would have had the strength to carry on through all of their hardships, and living conditions they were exposed too. Jacobs made it evident throughout her narrative that no matter the setting a slave was thrown into whether it was the auction block, working in the fields, or submitting to lashings they never lost their identity or pride.
Harriet developed a common identity to fit that of most plantation owners. They were wealthy, white southerners who felt that slaves were put on earth to serve them. Lashings were dealt regularly along with jail sentences and death threats. The abusive nature of slave masters came from their fear of their slaves. It was their way of attempting to break down the identity and sense of self that they saw in the slaves. Slave owners took advantage of their “property” in every way imaginable. In Jacobs’ account the reader learns of more than just Harriet’s experience of being sexually harassed by her male master but the account of many others’ whose experiences were similar or far worse than hers. Slave owners benefited greatly from the setting they were in. The more slaves you owned the more praised you were and the more exempt you were from obeying the law. There were the few owners or owners’ wives that were different. They had soft hearts, although they still owned slaves they were more lenient on them and did not subject them to abuse. There were even some that were willing to help hide slaves and aid them in their escape. “ If you think there is any chance of Linda’s getting to the Free States, I will conceal her for a time” (Jacobs 152). Harriet’s grandmother had a long time friend whose husband owned many slaves, as did she. This friend took the dangerous task of hiding a runaway upon herself and did so for months until the set up became too risky. She then helped ensure Linda (Harriet’s code name in the text) found a new, safe, hiding place and helped transport her there. Although the fact that she owned slaves tainted the goodness of her identity she was a humble woman stuck in the traditions of society in the 1800’s.
Identity is a somewhat difficult thing to define but Harriet Jacobs found a way to depict important people from the setting in which her book took place in a way that gave the reader insight to the identity of groups as a whole. Using specific characters that fit the common description of their title, Harriet described groups and individuals that would give a reader insight into the lives of the people from this time period in American history. She developed the identity of her, other slaves, and slave owners through illustrating the many types of people that could be found within the same walk of life.


















Works Cited

"Define the terms identity, ethnicity, race, class, culture and gender, and explore the differences, similarities and links bet." Google. 05 June 2009 <http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:V3qR_xZfxK8J:www.multiverse.ac.uk/attachmen ts/18fb5447-4169-4249-889a- 4f0a59f54344.doc+define+identity&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>.

Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Literary Touchstone Classic. New York: Prestwick House, Inc., 2006.