Virtue

Imagine living where the only thing you believed in was threatened by everyday life. This was a reality in Harriet Jacob's' "Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl," it shows a cruel, inside description of slavery. In this essay Jacobs changes the perception of the suffering from the concentrated work they had to do, to the emotional struggle they had to endure. In Jacob's' essay she concentrates on how the role of slavery stands to uphold womanly virtues and honor for a female slave.

In Jacobs' essay, she feels that her innocence and virtue are her only possessions. She feels that without these, she is just another female slave with no hope. She refers to this by saying "I want to keep myself pure: and, under the most adverse circumstance, I tried hard to preserve my self respect..."(489). The reason Jacobs feels so strongly about her beliefs is because she has nothing else. She lives he life everyday with no meaning but to serve her master. Jacobs feels that if she is able to keep her innocence and virtue she has something in her life to take pride in.

Another reason Jacobs felt so strong about her beliefs was because her grandmother was a big influence in her innocence. She feels that her grandmother takes great prid

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She is able to involve the reader into the story by directly addressing them. In this essay, Jacobs is also able to bring a more detailed look at slavery, that her audience can relate to. With this emotional standpoint she is able to bring a more realistic look. As a reader you believe that her actions are justified by the situation in which she had to deal with. Sands, she believes it was justified. She represents the woman slaves fight against the domination of slavery. She blames the state of slavery as being too great an enemy to fight. In this statement she is trying to get her reader to understand the hardships that she has had to deal with. Throughout the essay Jacobs makes this evident in several examples.

Although she feels bad about her relationship with Mr. She felt the only way the only way to protect her innocence from Dr. Her master would attempt to sexually abuse other women, and they would give in to his aggressive behavior. One example of this mental torture is when Dr.

Approximate Word count = 1498
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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