OPPapers.com

Biography And History: Harriet Jacob's The Life Of A Slave Girl

Biography and History: Harriet Jacob's The Life of a Slave Girl


To be a good writer, you must possess
a careful balance between detachment
and association, a delicate waltz where you are not so wrapped up in the events
of a story that it alienates the reader, and yet not so far separated from the
subject matter that the readers cannot get into it. This is espectially the
case in an autobiographical narrative. In this case, it is very difficult to
detach yourself from the main subject matter, that is, yourself. Yet it must
remain a story, and the story at its heart is a reconstruction of facts from the
memory of the author. In the case of Harriet Jacobs, it was also important that
she make sure the readers understood slavery from a woman's perspective. The
hardships she had to endure not only entailed the work and the punishments, but
also the sexual aspect of being a slave-girl. Her task is difficult, because in
order for the reader to really understand her position as a woman and a slave,
she must make the story extremely personal. If it is too personal, however, the
reader looses sight of the bigger picture, and does not relate all these
hardships to the condition of the general female slave. She accomplishes this
in two ways, through her writing style, and the writing content.
The style that the novel is written varies from a dialogue to a narrative,
depending on the subject matter being written about. For example, the dialogue
where Mrs. Flint confronts Linda (Jocobs) and asks her what has been going on
with her husband is handled very effectively, because as a conversation between
two people, we are able to pick up on the nuances of meaning. Also, it makes the
situation seem to the reader as very exhilarating, because we don't know what's
going to happen next. Two paragraphs later, though, the story has turned back
into narrative, because Jacobs is trying to examine the entire situation in her
present day, as a free woman. She has to be...