Essay on "Linda Brent's Quest for Freedom in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"

Essay 3 pages (1107 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Linda Brent's Quest for Freedom in "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"

In Harriet Jacobs' autobiographical narrative, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," we follow Linda Brent from the innocent days of childhood when she is naive to her enslavement, through the "sad epoch" of adolescence when she is forced to realize the extent of that enslavement, to the day when she finally attains freedom -- though at a cost. In regards to the "sad epoch," Linda learns to "fear her master's footfall," and to dread her mistress's jealous outbursts at a time when free white girls are cultivating virtue and chastity (Cope 28). In regards to freedom, it is the freedom to be virtuous and chaste that Linda craves, as it is this her enslavement denies her.

That freedom is more important to Linda than the prospect of marriage is apparent early on. When she meets and falls in love with a free black man, her master forbids her to see him out of spite -- and also to maintain his hold on her -- saying that if she must marry, she can marry one of his slaves. This, however, is about as distasteful to Linda as the notion of submitting to Dr. Flint himself, as to marry a slave would only enslave her further. Even when threatened with prison, Linda remains steadfast in her refusal of marriage and defiance of her master, saying that she would have more peace in jail than in her master's home (Brent 62). This is an echo of something she said earlier, regarding the general institution of slavery:

The felon's home in a penitentiary is preferable. He may repent, and turn from the error of his ways, and so find peace; but it is not so with a favorite slave. She is not allowed to have any pride of character. It is deemed a crime in her to wish to be virtuous. (Brent 49).

Thus we see that for Linda, the notion of freedom is irrevocably tied to the notion of virtue -- the trait she most aspires to possess, and also the trait most forbidden.

It is in this more than anything that Brent suggests the life story of a free woman differs from that of a slave. While the free woman's "pathway" from girlhood to womanhood is "blooming with flowers, and overarched by a sunny sky," the slave girl drinks "the cup of sin, and shame, and misery, whereof her persecuted race is compelled to drink" (Brent 48). For Linda, this cup comes in the form of her master's relentless sexual advances, which eventually drives her to seek a white lover and bare two children out of wedlock, thereby disgracing herself and her family. And while she does feel deep shame for this transgression -- shame that she says will haunt her for the rest of her life -- she maintains that "the slave woman out not to be judged by the same standards as others," and that it seemed "less degrading to give one's self, than to submit to compulsion" (Brent 86, 85).

In this way, Linda's decision to take a lover is also her first step toward securing her freedom. No longer the virgin slave girl, Dr. Flint's sexual interest in her quickly dissipates, along with the jealousy… READ MORE

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