Harriet Jacobs! Chapters V-XI

I try to imagine the life of a slave woman, really envelope the sense of such woeful degradation, the victim of inconceivable evils. It's difficult. It's difficult to fathom my lips speaking and no one listening. I'm just a body, with curves and breasts. I am just a piece of property. I am just an object of labor, as well as lust--an inexplicably cruel lust. For the master not only wants to possess my freedom, he needs to possess my body as well, even my skin color which he despises. He still wants me. I am at the center of a convoluted world where I am hated and desired simultaneously, pushed and pulled at the same time to the point where it's painful. It's difficult to imagine such an existence. And the fact that this was Harriet Jacobs' reality is haunting to me. Harriet Jacobs was subject to disgusting behavior by her master--he never ceased to make lude comments and press his sexual attraction upon her. So, Harriet becomes pregnant, viewing it as a way to be sold. She could escape his control and distasteful behavior. However, after the deed is done, she realizes that she has lost her purity, her last control of self. She says, "But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I also, could have married the man of my choice" (69). Though she does not claim ignorance, and she acknowledges that her actions were not thoughtless, but she directs much of the blame to slavery, and rightfully so. She became desperate, overwhelmed by a sense of desolation, wrought with fear, and condemned by her circumstances to collide with moments of weakness. She writes, "I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me," (71). Despite her pregnancy, despite her despair and uncertainty, I know, without further reading that this is not her downfall--and that is not only because there are several pages remaining to the book. In the few weeks that we have been studying African American Literature, I have noticed in awe the will-power, the strength of these individuals. Perhaps that is the only singular beautiful thing that emerged from slavery. These people, pushed to break, subjects to incalculable hardships, seemed to find within themselves the will to carry on, the strength to see the next day. I feel genuine admiration for these individuals. Their strength is beautiful. I hate that they needed to dig that deep, that they were forced to search so far within themselves for hope to survive. But, I think that their integrity is something to be illuminated with renowned and everlasting light.