Incidents 2

In the book titled Incidents of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, she describes the system of slavery as horrible. In the book, Harriet talks about how some women had children from the horrible abuses of the masters, and others. The law that surprised me the most was when Jacobs' states "She had forgotten that it was a crime for a slave to tell who was the father of her child". (Jacobs 12) To me this is extremly wrong. Slaves were being used as property, physically and sexually. A freedom that people have nowadays is the freedom of speech. I find it very interesting that citizens of America actually believed that they were following the law when they regulated these laws.
Another thing that shocked me in the book was the passage about Benjamin (Linda's Brother). Benjamin fought his master, which was very bad for slaves to do. The punishment for doing that was being whipped, and or death. Benjamin did want to do exprieince that."No I will not stay. Let them bring me back. We don't die but once". (Jacobs 19)  He seemed very scared and  commited to life in the North. Overall these things are strange to me because they are rare in our time period.

Joshua Briggs

The book titled Incidents in The life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, is a slave narritave about her life. Jacobs, uses the name Linda Brent without giving her real name. The book has alot of parts that struck me as interesting. One thing that intreguies me is the way Jacobs switches from two different things, from one to another so very rapidly. At one moment she would talk bout life, and then she will quickly switch to the death of her mistress. I found that very interesting. She made me believe she has no remorse for anything that happened, no emotion, no feeling. It is scary and interesting at the same time.
Another thing that intreugiued me about Jacobs' writing was the tone of Jacobs' words in the book. When she talks about her mistress' death, she acted as if it had no effect on her. "When i was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died" (Jacobs 5). Jacobs had a very calm sound to her voice, yet her mistress was important to her it had an effect on her. If i could ask Harriet Jacob's any question from reading the first few chapters, I would ask do you
act as if there is no emotion for anything in your tone, to help you cope with what happened?

Joshua Briggs