Journal 6: From Both Worlds of Race & Culture

In the story, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," by Harriet Jacobs, there are many themes that characterize her writing and are vividly brought to life. One of the main themes throughout her writing is the issue of race & culture. First of all, Harriet is a mulatto, meaning her mother was black and her father was white. In that time, a child with different race parents would be persecuted from both sides of the race spectrum. Jacobs doesn't say this, however she brings up the fact that she is mulatto more than once which makes me as a reader believe it was a big deal, and maybe even brings on a feeling of shame because then she herself had mixed race children. It is clear that she is caught between both the white and black world. She works for many white masters in a more than personal way yet she is treated like nothing more than property. You can feel her frustration with this in her writing, especially when she talks about her relationship with her first mistress. 


The most interesting conflict I saw in the reading was when Harriet was talking about her first mistress. She speaks highly of her, saying she taught her to read, write, and felt like a second daughter to her. So Jacob's grew up knowing very little of the idea of being a slave since she was blessed with being in a kind white household. But when the mistress died, she was left a slave and this person she considered like a second mother, did not give her her freedom. She writes, "My mistress had taught me the precepts of God's Word: ' Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself'...But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor." It is ironic that this mistress taught her that Biblical saying and yet could not show that same neighborly love to her. Because of Harriet's race and ethnic background she was not seen as equal to this woman who was so kind to her, and because of her race, was not given her freedom. Harriet grew up in one world but always "belonged" to another in the world's eyes.