Question

In "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," what was more significant in shaping Harriet Jacob’s experiences: her race or her gender?

and

As a slave and as a runaway, did Harriet Jacobs suffer more from physical or psychological abuse?

Answer 1

Looking into the autobiography of Ms. Harriet Jacob we can see her life as a slave and her experiences throughout the way in gaining herself and her children freedom from slavery. Both aspects of race and gender has equal roles to play in shaping her experiences.

Linda( pseudonym of Harriet Jacob) had to suffer a lot as a slave from her childhood itself, for the only reason of being born to a slave family. So the race plays an evident role here itself. And due course the story, she gets into a physical relationship with a white man, Mr.Sands, to save her children from slavery as they would be of mixed race. So the next level of the story was built upon the aspect of race and the whole story happened because if her race. But equally, all the experiences Linda had as a slave would've been better if she wasn't a woman, so the gender aspect cannot be unconsidered.

As a slave, by her coming to age itself, Linda had to go through sexual abuse from her master. So the physical suffering outweigh the psychological abuse in most places, as the slaves then not even knew how a better life was. And also after she had her children, she had to hide for seven years in the attic which is a lot of physical stress to handle. The slavery phase was a lot of sexual abuse to her followed by the psychological and physical sufferings of seeing her children getting seperated, viewing everything through a peephole from the attic. Later on, during the runaway to the north, she is psychologically affected as her children go missing. This keeps changing through the phases of the story.