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Joseph Park
ENG221
Free At Last, Free At Last

In her narrative, Incidents in the life of a Slave girl, Harriet Jacobs depicts both
literal and metaphorical concepts of slave confinement. As expressively described in the
narrative, slavery is not only a slaveholder's unjust possession of a slave's physical body, but also
their mind and spirit. Slaves are physically abused, psychologically demented, and spiritually
broken down. In addition to being held captive physically, their minds are imprisoned, and
therefore shaped by the beliefs of their masters and the prevailing ideologies of the Southern
states. Through the account of her life, Jacobs attempts to distill the basic notion that slavery is
only limited to the literal captivity of the physical human body, by revealing other metaphorical
"prisons" that slaves are confined to and even rely on during their slave life.

The classic comparative picture of a slaveholder overseeing slaves to a police

officer overlooking prison inmates, serves to lay out the general concept of slavery as a confining
prison. Once purchased, slaves become the full material possession of their master, who
ultimately carries the discretion of the slaves' experience. Slaves are physically restricted by the
boundaries of their workplace and, more widely, the boundaries of the South. By Southern law,
slaves become the physical property of their master and therefore the slaves are put into an
inescapable situation, a prison. Whenever Jacobs (Linda) is employed in a home, she effectively
becomes a prisoner, confined due to a lack of freedom and independence. As in any prison,
slaves are physically separated and restrained from the "outside", which includes the division of

slave families. Slaves are essentially denied their basic human rights and physically controlled
through beatings, whippings, and lynching, as depicted in Jacobs' narrative.

However, the physical confinement of a slave to their master is only a minimal

component of the full experience of being of slave. A slave's physical prison creates other
prisons, mental and spiritual, that cannot be seen personally through the reader's eyes, but can
only be experienced vicariously through empirical events in Jacobs' slave narrative. In the
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs falls in love with a colored, free-born carpenter.
However, she is aware that her love is in vain due to complications that arise when a slave
wishes to get married. She asks herself, "Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around
objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hands of violence?" (924). We can
see that her status as a slave restrains her even in a romantic sense. Moreover, this event lead to
the foundation of a one-sided sexual relationship between Dr. Flint and Harriet Jacobs. Jacobs
was frequently sexually assaulted by Dr. Flint which led to certain psychologically traumas that
are usually not included in the general concept of the slave experience. Regarding these
happenings between Dr. Flint, Jacobs tells the readers, "I come to a period in my unhappy life,
which I would gladly forget if I could" (929). Also, we can see that her experiences of sexual
assaults made a harmful dent in her mind when she writes, "For years, my master had done his
utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my
grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood" (929) She even refers to her master, Dr.
Flint as "the hateful man who claimed a right to rule me, body and soul" (925). By her words, it
seems that Jacobs is starting to become mentally trapped by foul images and the evil ways of her
master. The psychological harm caused by Dr. Flint creates a mental prison that was difficult to

escape from. Through these events, we are able to begin differentiating between the literal prison
and the metaphorical, abstract prisons that define a slave's captive experience.

Although the metaphorical prisons may connote only negative elements, Jacobs'
narrative reveals that at times, non-literal prisons can even serve as havens that a slave can rely
on. In her narrative, Jacobs seeks to escape from Dr. Flint's oppression by hiding in a small shed.
Here, Jacobs chooses her own confinement. Her decision of self-confinement draws her away
from the confinement as a slave. Although Jacobs is physically imprisoned once again, she is
psychologically unrestrained from Dr. Flint's subjugation. At this point, we can see the irony of
Jacobs' decision to confine herself. She confines herself to a metaphorical prison in order to get
out of a literal prison. Seven years of living in that shed created a mental prison for Jacobs. In
order to escape the quagmire of Dr. Flint's enslavement, Jacobs had to go through and experience
many trials that were taxing on her spirit. For weeks Jacobs was " tormented by hundreds of
little red insects, fine as a needle's point, that pierced through my skin, and produced an
intolerable burning" (935). Moreover, Jacobs was unable to interact with her children despite the
fact that she could see them right in front of her. After witnessing her two children, Jacobs cries
"How I longed to tell them I was there!" (935). Living for years in terrible conditions and not
being able to talk to her children must have spiritually broken Jacobs little by little while living
in the shed. Again, this is a representation that Jacobs had created a physical, yet also a mental
prison in order to break away from the prison of the slavery institution.

Another example of this is shown through an aforementioned event, in which she

falls in love with the colored, free-born carpenter. Concerning the love relationship between her
and the carpenter, she says "Many and anxious were the thoughts I revolved in my mind" (925).
However, she also includes that "This love-dream had been my support through many trials; and
I could not bear to run the risk of having it suddenly dissipated" (925). Clearly, Jacobs had used
this confining situation, a prison, as some sort of asylum that she could depend on. Although
Jacobs was mentally aware, or mentally confined, that she was not allowed to love the carpenter
due to her status as a slave, she uses that "mental prison" to escape from the actual trials
presented by Dr. Flint.

Both the literal and metaphorical prisons that slaves are held captive in essentially
create boundaries that restrict a slave's way of life. Having been greatly influenced by the
oppressing ideologies of the slaveholders, slaves normally become ignorant to what is happening
outside their physically and mentally restricted boundaries. After seven years of hiding, Jacobs
finally escapes to the North. Not only does her escape to the North entail escaping the physical
boundary of the South, but it also includes escaping the mental boundaries within her mind. Not
only is Jacobs attempting to free herself from the literal prison founded on the concept of slavery,
but she is also attempting to free herself from the mental boundaries that were created for her by
her slaveholders. In addition to Jacobs' physically escaping from her slave prison, she must also
break out from the many metaphorical prisons that she was once held captive in.

Through the Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, Jacobs excellently portrays the
various modes of confinement that are linked to a slave's life experience. We are shown that the
confining circumstances of a slave is not only limited to physical captivity by the slaveholder,
but also extends to the creation of a metaphorical, mental prison, which traps slaves in the evil
mindset of their masters and Southern ideologies. Near the end of her narrative, Jacobs
proclaims, "I and my children are now free! We are as free from the power of slaveholders as are
the white people of the north" (941). The "power" of the slaveholders reasonably includes
various types of power that the slaveholders had on the slaves. The slaveholders had the power to
not only physically confine the slaves, but also had the power to spiritually break and mentally
imprison the slaves through abuse and manipulation. However, the mental prisons sometimes
became a way to escape from the literal confinement that is normally attributed to a slave. When
Jacobs had fallen in love with the colored, free-born carpenter, she used her "love-dream" as a
means to escape from her literal prison, although her love for the carpenter was not allowed
because she was a slave. When Jacobs has enough of Dr. Flint's oppression, she creates her own
confinement, a physical and mental prison, in order to escape Dr. Flint's literal prison, even
though the conditions of her own prison breaks her down psychologically.

At the very end of her narrative, Jacobs concludes, "It has been painful to me, in
many ways, to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could"
(942). Here, we see that Jacobs is having a difficult time trying to forget "the dreary years" of her
past. Although she is now free and no longer physically confined to the institution of slavery, it
seems that she is still mentally confined to "gloomy recollections" of her past slave experience.