Harriet Jacobs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Harriet Jacobs - Essay Example Norcom. Dr. Norcom (given the pseudonym Dr. Flint in her Jacobs’ novel) would play an influential role in the life of Jacobs, sexually abusing her for most of her early life as a slave girl and threatening her should she refuse him. All of these factors led to Harriet Jacobs leading a difficult early life, which she recorded in her memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Life for Harriet Jacobs as a slave girl in the south was not easy. Although her parents were considered to be relatively high status for slaves, her mother’s early death meant that she was alone and under the full control of slave masters for the entirety of her early life. Dr. Norcom (Flint) began to sexually harass Jacobs just a few years after she was entrusted to his care. Jacobs was still very young at this point, and this sexual harassment would be one of the major influences on her life and her later writing. Cleverly, Harriet consented to the sexual advances of another white man (Mr. Sands ), which she thought would prevent Dr. Flint from sexually harassing her. Although Jacobs has said that she did not love this man and did not find it to be a Christian relationship, it was still preferably to being abused at the hands of Flint. Dr.