Incidents in a Life of a Slave Girl

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl are Harriet Jacobs's reflections on what slavery meant to her as well as all women in bondage. In order for one to truly understand the essence of Jacob's autobiographical narrative, one must be extremely personal and honest regardless of their relationship with the public. 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. Jacobs expresses her deep hatred of slavery, and all of its implications. She dreads such an institution so much that she sometimes regards death as a better alternative than a life in bondage. As a slave girl, Harriet Jacobs found this task very difficult. She had to contend with an audience that offered no support or compassion for women in her position." I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the north to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South."(Jacobs,429)…