Slave Girl and Black Boy
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The African-American experience is often chronicled in personal narratives like Harriet JacobsÆ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Slave Girl hereafter) and Richard WrightÆs Black Boy. Though JacobsÆ was a slave who endured the hell of that peculiar institution and Wright was not, both suffered abuses living in a racist society. The discrimination and violence Jacobs was subjected to as a slave is comparable to that of WrightÆs while living in the Jim Crow South. Both Jacobs and Wright suffered from physical and psychological captivity, though WrightÆs physical captivity was of a geographical nature and not the enslavement imposed on Jacobs. We see in a comparison of these two personal narratives that both Wright and Jacobs suffered greater physical and psychological captivity because neither was willing to remain servile when faced with humiliation and violence. As a slave, Harriet Jacobs suffers from literal physical captivity as well as psychological captivity as a little girl. In Slave Girl, we see the author had a happy development until she realized she was a slave, ôI was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhoodö (Jacobs, 1861, Ch 1). It is only then that the little girl realizes she is a captive of the institution of slavery, ôa piece of merchandiseö that is owned and sold at the whim of the owner (Jacobs, 1861, Ch 1). For the rest of her life, until her freedom is finally purc
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or years before she can escape to the North. However, she takes control of her situation in unique ways because of the typical freedoms being denied her. She throws off both the psychological and physical captivity of Doctor Flint by becoming pregnant to a lover of her own choosing. Jacobs does not become free from the threat of physical captivity (a fear that causes psychological captivity) however, until it is purchased for her by Cornelia Willis. Offended there is a ôbill of saleö for her freedom, Jacobs (1861) tells us of the document, ôI well know the value of that bit of paper; but much as I love freedom, I do not like to look upon it. I am deeply grateful to the generous friend who procured it, but I despise the miscreant who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him or hisö (Ch 41).
Richard WrightÆs Black Boy also exposes a number of different physical and psychological forms of captivity imposed upon those like Wright who lived in the Jim Crow South. While not a slave like Jacobs, WrightÆs geographical location physically imprisons him in a racist captivity. Jim Crow and segregation impose a physical captivity on African Americans in the midst of a dominant white culture. By the age of six, Wright
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Approximate Word count = 2025
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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