Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1861

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-30

Chapters 31-35

Chapters 36-41

Key Figures

Themes

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Essay Topics

How does Jacobs use rhetorical devices to educate her presumably White readers about slavery and involve them emotionally in her story?

Compare Jacobs’s narrative to one by a male author like Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Jacob D. Green, or Solomon Northrup. How is Jacobs’s narrative, which is uniquely about the treatment of Black enslaved women, shaped by her gender?

Why does Jacobs distinguish between Mrs. Flint, an evil slaveholding woman, and good Christian slaveholding women? Is Jacobs truly subscribing to the moral relativism of her time, or are her categories of slave owners ironic? Why or why not?