While reading “The Loophole of Retreat” chapter in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, I found myself interested in the scene in which Jacobs compares her experience to that of other slaves, saying that:
It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave, though white people considered it an easy one; and it was so compared with the fate of others. I was never cruelly overworked; I was never lacerated with the whip from head to foot; I was never so beaten and bruised that I could not turn from one side to the other; I never had my heel-strings cut to prevent my running away; I was never chained to a log and forced to drag it about, while I toiled in the fields from morning till night; I was never branded with hot iron, or torn by bloodhounds. On the contrary, I had always been kindly treated, and tenderly cared for, until I came into the hands of Dr. Flint. I had never wished for freedom till then. But though my life in slavery was comparatively devoid of hardships, God pity the woman who is compelled to lead such a life! (Jacobs 137-138)
I found the allusion to white people’s shock as the first striking aspect of this passage, as Jacobs frames the perpetual disconnect between white people and the suffering of slaves. The notion that her experience in slavery, marked by sexual abuse, mental torment, and extreme restrictions on her way of life could be considered “an easy one” echoes the detachment and judgement passed by non-slaves on the relative experience of those enslaved. While Jacobs then distinguishes between her limited experience with physical abuses of slavery and her own mental duress, the power in her analysis lies in the fact that both prove insufferable and inhumane. Although she concedes that she had been treated relatively well while she was young, the relativity proves that as nice as she might have been treated, she was still considered property. Such a comparison underlines the truth in the essential inhumanity and indisputable horrors of slavery, whether it takes shape in outright physical abuse or sexual and mental abuse.
I find that this scene potentially echoes our class discussion regarding Jacobs’ censorship of her own experiences; conceding that she never faced the horrors of plantation slavery abuses, such as those referenced in Douglass’s work, but still validating her own suffering. In justifying her running away and living in darkness rather than under the same roof as the abuses of Dr. Flint, Jacobs seems to be convincing the readership of the horrors of her experience without explicitly mentioning the physical abuse in her domestic setting as she doesn’t measure it to the physical abuse of other slaves.
I interpreted this scene as a claim that gauging who is more oppressed of one slave to the other distracts from the ultimate and important truth that slavery as a whole defines oppression and must be eliminated in all forms, whether physical, emotional, or mental abuses.
Illusion of a “Relatively Easy” Slave Experience in Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl
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In the Preface, Harriet Jacobs makes a statement about her goal with this narrative, which is to not “excite the sympathy for her own sufferings. But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two million of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse” (2-3). I believe that this statement can be used to emphasize your point. Jacobs uses her experiences to voice and validate the sufferings of millions of other slaves (people who do not have a voice or do not have the ability/literacy to voice their opinions to the North), not to create a hierarchy of who is oppressed more. This narrative is one of the few that reveals the female perspective of slavery, and so Jacobs’ account acts as the opening of floodgates, where millions more are represented and brought into the discussion of slavery. In this frame of mind, I think your argument fits nicely because here it is clear the underlining truth of any slave narrative is to display the system of slavery as oppression on any and every level and to everyone “underneath” it. There is not one person unaffected by it. Furthermore, there is an indication that it must be seen this way to make any change.
I agree with both of you, and think that you point out one of the most powerful things that the autobiography does, which is provide a woman’s perspective on slavery. While I can imagine that northern readers were aware of the abuses and atrocities that occurred on plantations, Jacobs illuminates the quieter abuses that were also occurring. In doing so, as well as detailing her own experiences with motherhood and Christianity, she was sure to appeal to a similar audience as Uncle Tom‘s Cabin, which she even explicitly references.
Hi Susan! I ended up writing my blog post on a super similar topic, what Jacobs refers to as an easy life is not one that should necessarily be considered easy. The simple fact that she is a slave should be enough for white people to recognize that her life had hardships, but unfortunately its not. This feels very similar to the way that she describes some characters as kind, even though they don’t actually do much to help her. They may be kinder than some, but they still continue the system of slavery and do little to stop it.
I like how you’ve captured Jacobs’ nuanced examination of the spectrum of horrors associated with slavery, highlighting the psychological torment and sexual abuse alongside the more overtly recognized physical brutalities. The ‘relative’ ease of her situation underscores the inherent dehumanization of slavery, that the absence of physical scars does not equate to a lack of suffering or an acceptable condition. The juxtaposition of Jacobs’ experiences with those described by Frederick Douglass also enriches our understanding of the variegated landscape of slave narratives, suggesting that the true barbarity of slavery lies not just in the physical punishment but in the total assault on the human spirit and identity.