Product Review
Harriet Jacobs, as an ex-enslaved female African American, wrote not only one of the first but also one of the most powerful narratives of enslavement. For any reader, of any race, desirous of experiencing something of the horrors of slavery, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" delivers.
Jacobs documents the horrendous treatment she and her fellow enslaved family members endured. Treated as nothing more than chattel, Jacobs repeatedly resisted the lewd advances of her owner. True escape and freedom impossible, Harriet "escaped" to a tiny underground hole in a relative's shack. Imagine what it was like for her to "live" there for seven years, watching through crevices her children age and her relatives raped.
The book indeed has elements of a disguise and of a novel. Jacobs never uses her real name but calls herself instead "Linda Brent." The other characters in the book are also given pseudonyms. Jacobs tells us in the Preface to the book (signed "Linda Brent") that she changed names in order to protect the privacy of individuals but that the incidents recounted in the narrative are "no fiction".
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