July 15, "Life of a Slave Girl"

While “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” may still work as an eye opening slave experience, “Life of a Slave Girl” is much more personal not only for it’s 1^st person narrative, but for the story being true. The events in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” may have been similar or the same to events that really had happened, while “Life of a Slave Girl” is told by a slave who actually experienced the story she tells. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” works for the same purpose in the since that it is told with the slave’s point of view in mind, but “Life of a Slave Girl” is able to put the reader in Linda’s head. Jacobs lets the reader become the slave through this literary technique.

One painful passage reads, “When he told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his, never before had my puny arm felt half so strong. So deeply was I absorbed in painful reflections afterwards…” Powerful writing and it is even more impacting when you remember this is a true story told from the person who suffered it. I think this story, while not as popular as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, holds more weight and pulls at more empathy being told from a first person narration.