“Faithful Are the Wounds of a Friend”: How Harriet Jacobs Is Not Afraid to Offend Her Audience in "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"

Copyright 2019 by Michael W. Rickard IIEditor's Note: Last fall I took a class on neo-slave narratives. Here is an essay I wrote on Harriet Jacobs' traditional slave narrative (as opposed to neo-slave narratives). Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Incidents) differs from other slave narratives because Jacobs is less sensitive to her audience’s sensibilities than other slave narratives of the time. Jacobs uses Biblical quotes to expose hypocritic attitudes towards slavery...