Response Paper on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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Response Paper on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl According to the encyclopedia Merriam Webster, slavery is a condition in which one human being is owned by another. However, we can define slavery as an institution and holocaust that has been set in place by insecure and greedy individuals with inhuman desire to physically and morally use and abuse other human beings to acquire wealth and status in the society. In her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs autobiographically writes about her family and friends’ slavery journeys as well as hers in the South of America. Going through Jacobs’s memoir helped me see slavery from a slave’s perspective, but it made me question religion and the capacity of slaves to measure immorality. It is more than pleasant and cheerful to read the story of a slave girl written by the slave girl in question. As a woman, I believe I can relate more to her story and be touched more easily. All the parts of her book were well-detailed and well-written leaving the choice to one to take any conclusion. She provided enough information in her book to enlighten the reader on the physical or mental abuses made on slaves in the South. In the ninth chapter of her book, Jacobs mentions that “If a slave resisted being whipped, the bloodhounds were unpacked, and set upon him, to tear his flesh from his bones.” These methods were used to spread fear upon slaves, and lead them to be fearful to try to escape. After I read the part where a slave who had been tortured by her mistress raised her hand and dealt two blows on her dead mistress’ face saying as she was doing it “The devil is got you now!”, I had mixed feelings. I thought it was good for the slave as she was able to ease her pain slapping the mistress; at the same time, I thought it was sad because slavery made the good woman stoop to the level of disrespecting a
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