Comparing Wells Brown And Harriet Jacobs: Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl
The Battle of the Mulatto
There is nothing more important to a woman than having the freedom to do as she pleases. It is an unexplainable feeling tingling on the inside of a person that is held captive against one’s will or bound to a master like a slave. Being bound by a slave master is horrible but being a woman of mixed color during that time can be detrimental to one’s soul. It is disheartening to a woman to be bound to her master in ways other than a servant. There were two narratives that tell of individual struggles of mulatto women bound under the control of another human being. Although the women in William Wells Brown Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter and Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl undergo drastically …show more content…
Jacobs relives her personal experience as a slave. She remembers the countless acts of sexual advances towards her by the slave master whom she resided with at the time. Therefore, she can relate to the women that were experiencing being seduced by their owners having to give in to them and have sexual intercourse with them. In her narrative Jacobs discusses “the sexual abuse she endured while in slavery” …show more content…
Jacobs’s narrative echoed Clotel’s story. The women in both narratives received a bribe from the slave masters. It was obvious that becoming a “lady” and having a dwelling place such as a cottage was a major incentive to the mulatto women. In both narratives the cottages were in areas far away from everyone so that the mistress and the master can have a peaceful relationship. Both Clotel and Linda were sixteen when offered a dwelling place. It appeared that the mulatto women were more attractive than the slaves that were not of a mixed race. The mulatto women had to deal with the constant sexual advances from the
There is nothing more important to a woman than having the freedom to do as she pleases. It is an unexplainable feeling tingling on the inside of a person that is held captive against one’s will or bound to a master like a slave. Being bound by a slave master is horrible but being a woman of mixed color during that time can be detrimental to one’s soul. It is disheartening to a woman to be bound to her master in ways other than a servant. There were two narratives that tell of individual struggles of mulatto women bound under the control of another human being. Although the women in William Wells Brown Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter and Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl undergo drastically …show more content…
Jacobs relives her personal experience as a slave. She remembers the countless acts of sexual advances towards her by the slave master whom she resided with at the time. Therefore, she can relate to the women that were experiencing being seduced by their owners having to give in to them and have sexual intercourse with them. In her narrative Jacobs discusses “the sexual abuse she endured while in slavery” …show more content…
Jacobs’s narrative echoed Clotel’s story. The women in both narratives received a bribe from the slave masters. It was obvious that becoming a “lady” and having a dwelling place such as a cottage was a major incentive to the mulatto women. In both narratives the cottages were in areas far away from everyone so that the mistress and the master can have a peaceful relationship. Both Clotel and Linda were sixteen when offered a dwelling place. It appeared that the mulatto women were more attractive than the slaves that were not of a mixed race. The mulatto women had to deal with the constant sexual advances from the