Intersectionality in Harriet Jacobs' "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,8, Technical University of Braunschweig (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: The slave narrative played a crucial role in the period of the abolitionist movement and thus became an important genre of American literature. The majority of slave narratives were written by men and therefore the experiences of most slaves were told from a male perspective. One of the most popular female slave narratives however, is "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" written by Harriet Ann Jacobs. She was the first fugitive female slave who published a full-length narrative under the pseudonym Linda Brent in 1861. As the opening quote shows, Harriet Jacobs' work deals with the unique experiences of female slaves. She addresses sensitive topics such as physical abuse and sexual violence, in order to emphasize that women experienced slavery differently than for example black men or white women. Female slaves were not only faced with racism but also sexism, classism and many other forms of oppression. Against this background, this thesis suggests that Linda Brent's experiences during slavery are a prime example for intersectionality. It is designed in order to critically analyze the experiences and oppression of female slaves on the basis of the narrative "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl".