Narrative of Harriet Jacobs
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According to Gates, Jr. (2002), between 1703 and 1944, one hundred book-length slave narratives had been written by slaves or former slaves, while six thousand and six ex-slaves had related their tales to others through interviews, essays, and books. In fact, as Gates, Jr. further points out, this is the only time in history where those who were held in bondage as slaves were able to write about their experiences and so create a new genre of literature û the slave narrative. He also contends that scholars have shown the link between literacy and freedom: ôThe slave who learned to read and write was the first to run awayö (Gates, Jr., 2002, p. 1). Harriet Jacobs was one of those slaves who escaped north and was able to share her tale with others. This paper will examine the narrative of Harriet Jacobs and discuss what motivated her to write it, who her audience was, and how she tried to appeal to that audience. In her tale, Jacobs shows how the very first day she landed in a Free State (Philadelphia) she was asked for her tale or a ôsketchö of her life (Jacobs, 2002, p. 439). Although she was reluctant to share her experiences at first, by the writing of this book she soon understood that in sharing her tale she would be able to help other fugitive slaves, as well as possibly be able to fight slavery itself. Therefore, she was determined ôto arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of the women of the Sou
. . .
aders that what she had gone through was a mere example of what millions of slave women were going through in the South. Besides the raising of her two children in freedom, she wanted her one accomplishment to be to help the other slaves left behind.
Audience
As Child and Jacobs both pointed out in the preface and introduction, the audience for this book was primarily women of the North, because it was through their influence over the men in their homes, neighborhoods, churches, and communities that change could be made. They also sought out those sympathetic men, however, who would also be willing to work change in the government policies and help keep fugitive slaves free:
I do it with the hope of arousing conscientious and reflecting women at the North to a sense of their duty in the exertion of moral influence on the question of Slavery, on all possible occasions. I do it with the hope that every man who reads this narrative will swear solemnly before God that, so far as he has power to prevent it, no fugitive from Slavery shall every be sent back to suffer in that loathsome den of corruption and cruelty (Child in Jacobs, 2002, p. 442).
Jacobs openly talks to her audience: ôO, ye happy women, whose purity has been shelte
. . .
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Approximate Word count = 1803
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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