Harriet Jacobs

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Stripped of Humanity Even though Harriet Jacobs endured physical abuse, she suffered more from psychological abuse as a slave and as a runaway due to sexual exploitation, constantly living in fear, and most importantly the deprivation of motherhood. She suffered great emotional pain while growing up as a slave and in her later years she suffered emotionally while trying to obtain her freedom. Harriet was often conflicted by her thoughts and wants; she desperately desired to be free and escape to the north but was held back by her love and devotion to her family. She was very smart and strong willed but slavery still managed to separate her family and robbed her of her human rights. Although she eventually gained her freedom she never obtained…show more content…
Flint started to sexually abuse Harriet that is when she goes through the most noticeable psychological suffering. She eventually consents to a love affair in hopes of putting an end to the abuse of Dr. Flint. She starts noticing that other slaves in her master’s house start to pity her but never dared question her about what was going one. Harriet writes, “They had no need to inquire. They knew too well the guilty practices under that roof; and there were aware that to speak of them was an offence that never went unpunished.” (pg. 31). She longed for a person to confide in and says that she’d give anything to be able to lay her head on her grandmother’s bosom and talk to her about all her troubles but couldn’t. Harriet mentions that “Dr. Flint swore he would kill me, if I was not as silent as the grave.” (pg.32). Harriet is forced to keep silent of what Dr. Flint is doing to her and you can tell that its causing her emotional distress as she keeps mentioning in the following chapters after she is forced to confess about the sexual abuse to Dr. Flint’s wife that she is still to remain silent. After she was separated from her lover she writes, “I talked to my grandmother about it…”, regarding her lover and Dr. Flint not allowing her to marry him, “and partly told her my fears. I did not dare tell her the worst. She had long suspected all was not right, and if I confirmed her suspicions I knew a storm would rise.” (pg.42). The sexual abuse drove her to consent to…show more content…
Flint doesn’t sell her to Sands but instead sends her to his plantation to be broken in as a field hand and fearing that her children will be taken too she decides to protect them and “escapes” to the north but in reality she is hiding in her grandmother’s attic living in fear. Harriet has been living in fear all her life, even before escaping Dr. Flint she mentions that he was always following her, “If I went out for a breath of fresh air, after a day of unwearied toil, his footsteps dogged me. If I knelt by my mother’s grave, his dark shadowed fell on me even there.” (pg. 31). After made to confess to Mrs. Flint about the sexual abuse she also lived in fear by her because Mrs. Flint would keep a close eye on her and even stand over her in the middle of the night while she was sleeping of whisper things into her ear at night, “Sometimes I woke up, and found her bending over me. At other times she whispered in my ear, as though it was her husband who was speaking to me…to hear what I would answer.” (pg. 37) Lastly I think that the worst way possible that Harriet Jacob suffered psychologically was when she was apart from her children who she loved dearly and not being able to be a mother to them in the early years of their life. She was obligated to be apart from them so that she can eventually have for herself and offer them a better life. When she tried searching for Ellen she writes, “Was my child
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