Primary Work

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Told By Herself (using the name Linda Brent), ed. Lydia Maria Child, 1861; republished as The Deeper Wrong. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1862.

| Top | Selected Bibliography

Andrews, William L. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865. 1986.

Burnham, Michelle. "Loopholes of Resistance: Harriet Jacob's Slave Narrative and the Critique of Agency on Foucault." Arizona quarterly 49.2 (1993): 53-.

Cutter, Martha J. "Dismantling 'The Master's House': Critical Literacy in Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." Callaloo 19.1 (Wint 1996): 209-.

Garfield, Deborah, and Rafia Zafar. eds. Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. NY: Cambridge UP, 1996.

Randle, Gloria T. "Between the Rock and the Hard Place: Mediating Spaces in Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." African american review 33.1 (Sprg 1999): 43-125.

Lovell, T. B. "By Dint of Labor and Economy: Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, and the Salutary View of Wage Labor." Arizona quarterly 52.3 (1996): 1-.

Nudelman, Franny. "Harriet Jacobs and the Sentimental Politics of Female Suffering." English Literary History 59.4 (Wint 1992): 939-964.

Sorisio, Carolyn. "'There is Might in Each': Conceptions of Self in Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself." Legacy 13.1 (1996): 209-.

Walter, Krista. "Surviving in the Garret: Harriet Jacobs and the Critique of Sentiment." American transcendental quarterly 8.3 (1994): 189-.

Washington, Mary Helen. "Meditations on History: The Slave Narrative of Linda Brent." in her Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women, 1860-1960. 1987.

Yellin, Jean Fagan. "Harriet Jacob's Family History." American literature 66.4 (1994): 765-.

---. "Introduction." Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written By Herself. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1987. E444 .J17 A3

| Top | Study Questions

1. Compare and contrast Linda Brent with Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. See especially the following quotation from Incidents that equates unwed motherhood with stigma: "My unconscious babe was the ever-present witness of my shame."

2. Write a paper comparing Jacobs and Douglass and based on the following central quotations from each narrative: "Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women" (Jacobs) and "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man" (Douglass).

3. Explore the particular obstacles Linda Brent faces and their significance for women at the end of the twentieth century: sexual harassment, poor mothers' legal rights, and difficulties for advancement when faced with responsibilities and care for children.

4. Jacobs ends her narrative "with freedom, not in the usual way, with marriage." Comment on the implication here that freedom matters more to Linda Brent than marriage. To what extent does Incidents suggest that the "life story" is different for enslaved women than for free (white) women?

5. Identify the contradictions implied in Dr. Flint's promise to Linda that if she moves into the house he has built for her, he will "make her a lady."

6. Find a troubling passage. What is troubling? Why? What does this suggest? Why do you think that Incidents was believed the production of a white woman, not of a former slave? Why do you think that Incidents was thought to be a novel, not an autobiography?

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page:

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century - Harriet Ann Jacobs " PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/jacobs.html (provide page date or date of your login).  

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