Harriet Stowe and Harriet Jacobs shares comparison

Harriet Stowe and Harriet Jacobs share a comparison in that they both write books on the same subject. The themes of slavery are explored in both Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Life of a Slave Girl. Stowe described the difficulties that African Americans faced as slaves in her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Via her novel, anti-slavery movements were motivated and energized to fight for better conditions. Stowe used her emotions to bring up the subject of slavery in her writing. She wrote the book with two intentions, and she wanted the northerners to get a glimpse of what African Americans were going through in the south, and she wanted the Southerners to feel a little empathy towards the people they were insisting on making their slaves. She used the struggles and the challenges of the slaves to draw the audience’s attention.
Harriet Jacob is a perfect example of the African Americans that were subjected to the life of slavery. However, she later in life developed to became a reformer, speaker, and abolitionist. In her novel, she focused on the problems that the female slaves endured, including sexual harassment and discrimination in the society. She advocated for the protection if the women rights (Jacobs 74). Her book was initially not recognized, but after the civil, the growing interest in minority drew attention to her book. Harriet Jacobs, in her book ’The Life of a Slave Girl’ uses pseudonym Linda Brent to narrate her first person account. In her early years of childhood, Linda lived a happy life, but this came to an end after the death of her mother. After the death of her mother, she is taken to her mother’s mistress who treats her well but also died after a few years. It is after her death that she is taken to Dr. Flint’s place. Here, she is subjected to slavery, and after years, she escapes.
Arguments made on the effects of slavery
In both books, the characters are subjected to torture in their respective places of stay, and this forces them to escape. In the book ’The Life of a Slave Girl’ Linda is subjected to a lot of torture at Dr. Flint’s place. She is forced to work for long hours both in the house and in the plantations. During her long-hours of working, falls a victim of verbal attacks from her master. At some point in time, her master develops lustful attractions to her and keeps an eye on her on several occasions. Lucky enough, his sexual pursuit hardly leads to rape. Her challenges increase when she pre-maturely delivers two babies Benny and Ellen (Jacobs 63). She thought that upon the delivery of the children, she would be sold by Dr. Flint to Mr. Sands, but in disguise, he sends her to his plantation to be broken as a field hand. With these suffering on the rise, and with her children growing, she hatches a plan to escape while at her grandmother’s place. She hides in the attic crawl space in the house of her grandmother while her children are sold to a slave trade representing Mr. Sands. She escapes to Brooklyn after seven years in the crawl space, where she reunites with Ellen.
A similar plot is evident in Harriet Stowe’s book on chapter seven. Having fallen in the hands of large debts, Arthur Shelby decides to sell two of his slaves, Eliza’s son being one of them. Mrs. Shelby had promised Eliza that her son would not be taken from her but from the conversation she overhears; her son was among the slaves that were to be sold (Stowe 47-67). As slaves, she knew that she would never see her son again. She also knew that her son would be subjected to torture that most of the slaves faced. As slaves, they were forced to work for long hours and were never given the best life that anyone could expect. All these slaves were frustrated and escaping was always an option to them (Stowe 47-67). Eliza flees Uncle Tom’s Cabin rather than having her son to be taken from her. She feels lonely and tortured by maternal sense of panic after fleeing from the Uncle Tom’s cabin.
Making of the arguments
Both authors portray a clear picture of the zeal that the mothers have in ensuring that they protect their children. Stowe, in her book, reveals the extent that Eliza had to go to save her son from being sold. She takes a daring move and escapes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Jacob on the other hand, in her book, looks at Linda, who is subjected to torture as a slave at Dr. Flint’s place (Stowe 53). However, driven by the desire to ensure that the suffering hardly extents to her children she comes up with a plan to escape from the jaws Flint’s suffering. Her decision to hide in the crawl leaves Dr. Flint with the option of selling her children through she knows that they will be in safe hands. After seven years of hiding, she escapes on a boat to Brooklyn, where she reunites with Ellen. She later also reunites with Benny but knows very well that Dr. Flint still has them on his radar.
Text that does a good job reaching on Northern abolitionists
The text by Harriet Jacob does an excellent job in reaching the northern abolitionists. The text has been structured in such a way that it portrays to the audience all the negative effects that come along with slavery and the extents to which the victims go to free from the hands of torture and discrimination (Jacobs 73). The message to the northern abolitionists reflected in Jacob’s text is that human beings are equal and they require equal treatment. Clearly, this means that those perpetrators of slave trade need to know that it is illegal. These perpetrators of slave trade also have to know that slave trade only but break families and leave victims of slavery psychologically affected. At some point, Linda turns out as a fighter for civil rights and equality within the society. In as much as books focuses also focuses on the fight for the abolition of slavery and slave trade, the text by Jacob comes out as emphatic and vocal in the fight for the challenge of slavery compared to that of Stowe. In her background information, Harriet Jacob began her lectures in 1862 in Philadelphia where she was working with the female anti-slavery society to support her book. She participated in feeding and providing shelter for slaves and blacks who were living in poverty. She would write to abolitionist to seek their help so that together they would fight against the injustice.

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Work cited
Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. 1st ed. Edstone, Warwickshire: Coda Books, 2011. Print.
Stowe, Harriet. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 3rd ed. Boston: Twayne, 2001. Print.