Douglass And Jacobs As Heroic Slaves

7 Pages 1787 Words

the monster proved to be too strong for me” (Incidents 821). In trying to fend off her master she takes up a sexual relationship with a white man, Mr. Sands, having two children by him. “There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment” (Incidents 821). This immoral act troubled her deeply and she hoped that the reader would see that “the slave woman ought not to be judged by the same standard as others” (Incidents 822).
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was one of the first stories written from the viewpoint of the women in slavery. Before this time, slavery was only seen by the views depicted by male writers. These writers showed the women as to “play subordinate roles. Men leave them behind when they escape to the North, or they are pitiable subjects of brutal treatment, or benign nurturers who help the fugitive in his quest for freedom, or objects of sentimentality” (Mary...