Woman of the north hear my cry

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The Pursuit to End Slavery
Jacob’s story is a woman’s story because it radically brings out the issues of female bondage as well as sexual abuse from a female’s perspective in a more enthusiastic way. Jacobs’ narrative focuses on their rights to protect their families. The story describes the fight for freedom for women. According to Jacobs, slavery was “far more terrible for women.” It is widely observed in the narrative that apart from the brutalities and saddening horrific acts enslaved men had to go through, women also bore the added pain of being separated from their kids. Also, women were often used as “breeders.” They were forced to get more children to add to the “stock” of their masters in an inhumane way, especially taking into mind the connection between a mother and her child, were denied the chance to care for their young ones (Jacobs, Child, and Yellin, 258). It was not a surprise for the master to satisfy his lust using the female slaves. The master coerced them to bear his kids which amounted to rape. Women slaves could be separated from their children at any moment, and regardless of being from the same master, oppressing labor laws, and plantation policies mostly hindered the growth of their relationships.
It is majorly through her double role as both a mother and a slave that Harriet Jacobs in this narrative gets the push in forging forward her social identity and arm herself with the necessities to hold resistance and refuse slavery.

Through her narrator’s motherly ideologies, Jacobs disagrees with everyday thoughts regarding black females neglect to their young ones and as well as the majority of the Whites ideologies at the time.
To also show that Jacob’s story is a woman’s story, she heavily relies on the knowledge of motherhood as a way of strong, unshakable relationship (Jacobs, Child and Yellin 260). Linda’s deeds are shown as majorly coined by the impact they will pose on her children and their resultant emancipation. A big number of the slaves were not able to keep stable families, although the opposing initiative is driven by maternal sentiment Jacobs showed maternity as a power that abolishes slavery and its enthusiast. Motherly care is observed to give a classical of relations which go against the holding and exchange of slaves characterizing the historical system of human slavery.
In her narrative, Jacobs mainly enlightened the women of the North in a bid to make them mindful that they had the chance to stop slavery only if they stood up and protested. Failure to this, they are as guilty as the Southern slave masters. Jacobs capitalized female’s slave’s acceptance through campaigning for various values that were thought to be both unappealing to both the white and women and the slaves. This was all women’s will to remain pure, whereby, sexual associations outside of wedlock were just unacceptable and wrong altogether suggesting a correlation between women of the two races, and it is this situation that Jacobs hoped to capitalize to cap slavery.
The primary aim of the slave story was to get the sympathy of the white audience; however, Jacobs had a more authentic audience, that is, the White women. Jacobs appealed to the white women by solely addressing female issues such as sexual abuse and motherhood while at the same time maintaining the already established gender roles. The importance of motherhood and reality of low-income family maintenance helped a big deal in creating a special bond with the female readers. Motherhood was an important part of a woman’s life during this period in addition to the fact that it was able to connect different mothers of social status regardless. (Gates and Smith, n.p). It is this logic that proved difficult to contest, which argued that white women are female parents of which the motherhood is sanctified; hence whites ought to be treated with dignity, the same should also apply to black women and be treated with dignity in the context of being mothers and since motherhood is blessed.
The narrative is shown to transcend gender where Jacobs adheres sensibly to the recognized gender obligations in the society as realistically possible regardless of her low social status profile. Jacobs respects and adores her grandmother and believes that as much as she has her care and empathy, life can be turned right (Jacobs, Child, and Yellin, 256-257).
Jacobs is effective in enlightening the women of the North of slavery through this narrative which in a way led to questioning and the successful abolition of slavery. Hence, the narrative, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is very useful and much more efficient in using various tactics and strategies to get the attention of the women of the North and bring them to their senses regarding the horrendous acts against women slaves who lived in the South. Jacobs also acknowledges that not all slaveholders were inhumane especially judging from her first master was overly sweet to her. But by explaining horrendous and barbaric acts against slaves and punishments slaves had to go through in their daily lives in their master’s plantation while comparing this life to how the whites spent their holidays peacefully. Jacobs was able to demonstrate its purpose in of arousing Northern women of taking note of the devastating condition endured by two million Southern slaves.
Jacobs is also witty in providing this evidence to the women of the North because she did not just tell the story of “the evil slaveholders,” by which she would have portrayed all the Whites as being inhumane and vile. Were it not for this, the White women in the North would have given a wide berth to the book, and not even have the slightest intention to read it because they would see themselves as already evil in her eyes. They would immediately feel attacked and thus by highlighting some mindful Whites, were not instantly turned off from the book.

Works cited
Gates, Henry Louis and Valerie Smith. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Print.
Jacobs, Harriet A, Lydia Maria Child, and Jean Fagan Yellin. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. Print.