AADS/ENGL 3328.01
Pregnancy can be defined as a critical moment in a woman’s life when they are arguably are considered the most feminine. One of the most basic and primal differences between men and women is a woman’s capacity to bear children and essentially create life. It’s something that happens every day but it’s a process cloaked…
Throughout the autobiography Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, under the pseudonym Linda Brent, Jacobs describes her experiences with the “poisonous fangs” of slavery from her conscious awaral of enslavement at age six, stripping her from the comforts of childhood, to the sexual abuses she was a continuous victim of, all…
In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs grapples with her violent past –namely the sexual abuse she experiences at the hand of her master, Dr. Flint–in hopes that it will educate her white readers about the pervasive damage that slavery causes. In Chapter V, “The Trials of Girlhood,” Jacobs…
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs describes the cruelty she is shown at the hands of her mistress, Mrs. Flint. In Chapter VI “The Jealous Mistress,” however, the empathy that Jacobs shows towards Mrs. Flint depicts Flint as not just an enforcer of the institution of slavery, but rather a…
In Chapter I, Childhood, the author begins to introduce her family dynamic. She speaks of her grandmother’s youngest son, Benjamin, describing him, and his experience being sold, as such: “He become a brilliant, good-looking lad, almost white: for he inherited the complexion my grandmother had derived from Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Though handiest then years vintage, seven…
In chapter 4 of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” Harriet Jacobs recounts the first time she was punished by her mistress, Mrs. Flint. She notes that unlike many other forms of discipline on the plantation, hers was not corporeal, but rather “petty” and “tyrannical.” Jacobs had gotten new shoes, courtesy of her…
“‘I am sassafrass/my fingers behold you I call upon you with my song you teach Me in my sleep/i am not a besieger of yr fortress/i am a crusader/for you are All my past/i offer you my body to Make manifest yr will in this dungeon Of machines & carolina blues/i wanna Sing yr joy/&make…
In the novel Sassafrass, Cypress, & Indigo, Ntozake Shange describes Cypress’s dream, where she envisions a matriarchal society that defines childbirth as a punishment and men as nothing more than sperm banks. Shange depicts Cypress dreaming of this perverted society in order to show the very possibility of it. Cypress can conceive of this happening…
Sassafras, Cypress, & Indigo, by Ntozake Shange, is an American novel that tells the story of three Afrifcan American sisters, as they attempt to reach success and fulfillment. The novel jumps between various narrative viewpoints through the 60’s and 70’s. The racially charged atmosphere of the time period provides a unique perspective on perseverance and…
In her novel Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, Ntozake Shange makes repeated use of the phrase “The South in her” in reference to Indigo. First appearing on page four when spoken by Indigo’s mother Hilda, it is thereafter a standalone motif at the end of a paragraph, appearing five more times throughout the novel. Shange’s repetitive…