Harriet Jacobs. 2010. 2010-2011 Season, Kansas City. By Nambi Kelley.
ENCOUNTERS
Numbered responses are by ECU students.
Quotations are in red.
Italics indicate instructor comments and questions.
Heroes/Humans1. ...something I’m confused about. In one of the earlier chapters
when Linda first got pregnant, her grandmother shamed her and told her to
leave; however, in chapter 29 she writes that, “The kind-hearted old woman had
an intense sympathy for runaways" and I’m not sure how she can be both.
A Slave's Mind
2. While describing a conversation she
had with her twelve-year-old son, where Jacobs is shocked to learn that her son
had deduced where she was hiding and made sure to keep people away from the
side of the house she was in, she notes that he behaves with much “prudence…
extraordinary in a boy of twelve years”. This was the reality for enslaved
people; they were hypervigilant, learning early on “to be suspicious and
watchful, and prematurely cautious and cunning” as a means to survive. This is another
stark difference between growing enslaved and growing up free.
3. From her trauma, Jacobs has been
robbed of her trust of even helpful, well-intentioned people, and she writes of the captain who delivered her on her route to safety,
“Now that the captain was paid for our passage, might he not be tempted to make more money by giving us up to those who claimed us as property? I was naturally of a confiding disposition, but slavery had made me suspicious of everybody.” Trust may not be thought of as a right, as to some, it is inalienable, but to a slave, it is a resource that has all but withered away in its repeated abuse and exhaustion. She cannot even fully enjoy an act of kindness.
4. One of the most shocking pieces of information within Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was how Linda’s grandmother expressed no relief and/or joy at the passing of Dr. Flint in chapter forty-one, “Dr. Flint is dead. He has left a distressed family. Poor old man! I hope he made his peace with God.” Linda’s grandmother still expressed concern over the man who not only committed horrendous acts to his granddaughter, but who also made it a personal goal of his to retrieve her at any cost. This compassion goes beyond Christian values. Dr. Flint’s actions are simply unforgivable in my opinion, but it is not up to me to forgive him.
"Free" States
5. But even when she’s finally “free”
she’s still seen as property by those states, “Those words struck me like a blow. So I
was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York!” (Jacobs).
Enlightenment Values
6. Jacob writes “The more my mind had become enlightened, the
more difficult it was for me to consider myself an article of property; and to
pay money to those who had so grievously oppressed me
seemed like taking from my sufferings the glory of triumph,” which is an idealistic position to take regarding her potential freedom.
7. It’s heartbreaking to see that Linda lived in a hole for seven years, as well as experienced many other terrible events to escape the grasp of Dr. Flint, only to still have her freedom purchased for three hundred dollars. (A little over $6,000 in today’s currency.) This purchase
feels like an insult to her and her tribulations.
8. . . . it also vexed me that her only true and legal safety would come only if her pride were diminished by being "purchased." This is a struggle between values that is showcased later as well when she is being followed and pursued in the states, as well as her children threatened, when another white benefactress named Mrs. Bruce plans to purchase her in spite of
Jacob’s wishes to not be sold as property nor give money to those who have tried to defraud her and her grandmother their entire lives; but she is sold anyway, and both Linda and the reader feel some sense of relief;
“I received this brief letter from Mrs. Bruce: 'I am rejoiced to tell you that the money for your freedom has been paid to Mr. Dodge. Come home to-morrow. I long to see you and my sweet babe'” (Jacobs). This sense of relief is interesting, and I wonder how much of a victory it truly is. Of course, for the individual her freedom is of the most massive of victories, but what is there to say about the mode by which she had to obtain this freedom? Much like we have discussed the interest involved in the love and appreciation Jacob’s and other slaves had for ‘good’ or ‘benevolent’ slave owners, how much can this good deed be considered truly ‘good’ if having to work within such a barbaric system?
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