Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Harriet Jacobs

Linda is a young girl that has been enslaved for a great many years.  This piece is forthcoming with shame and much hate for her owner Dr. Flint.  He fancied Linda from the time she was a young girl, yet she was too ashamed to tell anyone of the vile comments he made to her. As the threats continued for her "disobedience" Linda fell in love, then told the man to go and not return for her.  Dr. Flint would not sell Linda to anyone because he continually says how she is not his to sell because she belongs to his daughter.  Linda continues to dodge advances from her master including his want to send her to a house of her own in the woods, a white man then begins to show interest in her situation and her.  Linda decides to give herself to him for many different reasons, including getting to choose, because he cares for her and out of spite towards her master.  She then becomes pregnant not once but twice.  Her master sends her to his sons plantation to teach her how to behave.  She spends some time there and is basically the head maid.  When she gets word that Dr. Flint is going to send her children to the plantation she runs away.

I first want to reflect on some of the characters in the story.  The master is a man that is more concerned with power than money and this becomes very concerning when Linda will not bow to his wishes.  She has been taught right from wrong by her grandmother and knows that her master is wrong.  I find it very interesting that at many different points Linda is able to say her true feelings to her master and yet not as much harm is done to her as is done to some others.  I think that Linda's refusal to bend to her master's wants only makes her more appealing to him.  If she did give into him I think that he would have been sick of her and sold her and her children, but because she did not and had children with another man he wanted to make her miserable in the only way he knew how: not selling her.  I also want to touch on the grandmother in the story.  She is so highly respected by the doctor because of the time that she was in the family before her freedom was bought that he doesn't dare go against her wishes either.  He seems to be afraid of what she will do with if she ever gets the knowledge of what he has said to Linda.  He is so threatened by her that he threatens Linda's life on multiple occasions if she tells her grandmother what he says.

The tone of this story breaks my heart.  Linda often talks about death would be a welcome alternative to a life of slavery.  She fears for not only her children when they are born but also the children on the plantation.  She says that those children do not know what they are headed for ad that their "happiness" will be short lived. I truly find it awful the life that this girl was forced to lead.  Being sexually abused from the time you were very very young there's no wonder her accounts of her whole life are all sad.  The only time that we see any joy is when she falls in love, and it's tainted because her master is jealous and watches her every move.  She is then brought with even more sorrow when she tells her love that when he moves, he shouldn't come back for her. Linda wanted to get away from this life of sorrow not only for her sake, but for her children's as well.  Her interjections in the story where she talks to the reader also shows her embarrassment and sadness for the life that she was forced to lead.  She would interject and tell the reader that she is not looking for pity but simply wants to tell her stories, she would also interject to say how shameful her actions were.  I found very little joy in this piece at all.

I wonder how everything ended up.   I hope that she was able to make it to the states and free herself, that would be my assumption because she wrote this story so much longer after her life of slavery.  However, I do wonder if she ever did she make it to the free states, and if she did did she find either the father of her children or her lost love?  Did she go back for her children and free them as well?  Is she ever caught and brought back before she escapes for good?  Does she even escape for good?

6 comments:

  1. It always seem that regardless of the time period grandmothers are always highly respected. I find it sad that the world she lived in never gave her a chance to be opitmistic.

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  2. I really like your observations on the story. I like how you divided it into divisions with characters and tone and your perspective. The tone of the story was very heartbreaking to me as well because knowing that your children were going to be faced with the life that she had as well makes it hard to make them believe that they're future is going to be good. It's really sad that she sometimes wishes that her children would die instead of being out through the things that she had to go through.

    I wondered the same things as well at the end of Chapter 17. I'm glad that she was finally free and united with her children and their father. It makes the story feel like it ended well knowing that she finally got what she wanted.

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  3. As I look at different ways this story could be looked at I'll focus on the slave owner's wife. As discussed in class she is basically a slave herself and that she does not take her anger out on her husband but the slaves. She blames the slaves for "seducing" her husband.

    Now I want to relate this back to today. This still happens. I look at society and many men higher up cheat on their wives and they look the other way and say it's the mistresses fault.

    In my personal circumastances I was engaged and the boy I was supposed to marry got two other girlfriends and slept with many other men. I only put this out there because personally I did not blame those other girls. I saw that he was supposed to be faithful to me and then went outside the bounderies of trust assuming he wouldn't get caught because of who he was. The "girlfriend number 2" as we have named eachother was so astonished to find out we were engaged and apologized all over herself. Many people in class today said that humans shouldn't be monogomous and that women who are cheated on often blame the mistress. I still believe that you should be faithful to the one you're with, if you don't want to be with them then just say so and end that relationship. Every human deserves respect, and I think that women are still fighting for the respect that they deserve because of men who have low morals and self worth.

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  4. Good points. I'm not sure that many people said humans "shouldn't" be monogamous, but posed the question as to whether or not humans are naturally monogamous or if it simply a tradition that is followed. In other words, is it innate or learned behavior? Should we question certain American traditions?

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  5. I was referencing a classmate that was very atimate to me and said specifically that we shouldn't be monogamous. It, however, was not an entire class agreement. I think that being monogamous is definitely a learned behavior that has been part of our tradition from the beginning of the country. Should some traditions be questioned...absolutely. However, I think that being with one person at a time is something that is important to most people. Jealousy is an innate quality in all humans and there is no way to go about having a relationship with multiple people without there being an immense amount of backlash. There are some traditions that should be questioned, for instance, should the right marry whomever you choose be legal? Absolutely, that is something that should be questioned in America. I think that you can't choose who you fall in love with, you're not supposed to. However, choosing to properly go about those feelings is important. If you are in a relationship with someone but would rather be with someone else or are attracted to someone else, then end it with someone you're in a relationship with. In America now it's acceptable to "sleep around." Except the implications of this are again determined by the gender of the person. If woman choose to sleep around they're "sluts" or "whores" but if a man sleeps around they're "ballin." I rarely hear men be called derogatory names because they sleep around, many guys look up to other guys that sleep around calling it cool. I think THAT should challenged. This is another obvious example of how gender differences are still in affect and women are still trying to be treated as equal to men.

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