What I found to be the most interesting was not only the depiction of race throughout Jacobs’ “Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl” but also the gender roles women okay throughout he story. Jacobs describes that men who owned women slaves kept their dark secrets of affairs with their slaves away from their wives because of the destruction it would cause to the family and the member of society. I found it so interesting that, from what I understood, men found slaves to be the women that they never have had and forced them to be the women they never wanted to be. The girls never wanted to be a slave, but because of births of the color they have they must be one and because of their gender it makes it even worse. The power behind the men and how they treated their slaves was absurd. They would make them have intercourse, beat them, frighten them anything, but they would never do so to their beautiful, white wife. During Jacobs’ story the role of women changes slightly. She finds freedom and from a women, Mrs. Bruce, but women were still going to be treated unequal to men, despite the gender they have. Mrs. Bruce does no conform to society; she gives freedom to a black woman, which is completely uncalled for! She is resisting this role for change and for one day that all women can be free, no matter what their color. What I found so interesting was on page 777, that Jacobs describes, what I think she is describing the American woman. “If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws…” (Jacobs). It so interesting because she is describing the American woman as being free and choosing the man that she so wishes. Jacobs is a women, but she is not free so she has to put up with her masters telling her who she can and can’t marry. But I love how she tells her master that she can do whatever she wants in the story. She is proclaiming her identity as this women that she thinks she ought to be, but hr owner beats her and tells her no. But, its fascinating that she keeps fighting for what she wants and that is freedom and a husband. That is an American women role as well, a fighter. Jacobs continues to fight her fight in her story not only as a slave into freedom but a women into the powerful being she was put on earth to be.
You make good points about how white men would brutalize their slaves but not their wives. Or do you think that maybe we don't know if white wives of slave owners were brutalized or not?
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