Harris 1 Dionte Harris Dr.

Edlie Wong ENGL470 12 March 2014 Slavery is a White Mans World The felonmay repentand so find peace; but it is not so with a favorite slave. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda Brent is a slave. But not just any slave, she is a good slave: respectable and obedient. Still she happens to be the slave of a jealous mistress. Mrs. Flint attempts to incriminate Linda on multiple occasions, without adequate evidence or reason, for sleeping with her master, Dr. Flint. However, Mrs. Flint does not condemn Linda because she is slovenlyshe accuses her slave of these acts because of her knowledge of her husbands character. Mrs. Flint truly knows her husband and his reputation. Jacobs notes that Mrs. Flint possessed the key to her husbands character before I was born, yet she still chooses to demoralize the young and innocent slaves than to confront her husband about his actions. Through her characterization of Dr. and Mrs. Flint as well as their interactions, between each other and with Linda, Jacobs argues that slaves are not the only victims of slavery; due to the gender dynamics in a patriarchal society, the slave mistresses also suffer. While the slave mistress has some degree of control over the slaves, they do not have the power to control, the actions of, their husbands, making slavery: a mans world. Mrs. Flint and Linda have a strained relationship. When Linda becomes a sexual object, Mrs. Flint does not attempt to hide her irritation with the slaves presence. Mrs. Flint is malevolent, and she has no sympathy for her slaves. However, she virtually has no power even though she, on multiple occasions, exhibits force. The first notice of Mrs. Flints powerlessness

Harris 2 occurs when, even though she wishes to beat Linda, Dr. Flint does not punisher her nor will he allow anyone else to. Even though she is Dr. Flints wife, and that would make Linda her slave, she does not have the authority to neglect her husbands rules; therefore, all Mrs. Flint can do to Linda is harass her. Dr. Flint is an astute man. He is capable of appearing benevolent and caring while being malicious and manipulating. When Dr. Flint catches Linda practicing how to read and write he does not outright punish her, instead he begins to give her notes to read aloud to him. These notes can be seen as a compassionate and paternal gesture of Dr. Flint showing that he cares about Lindas education. However, in reality, they are the tickets that Flint needs to start spending extra time with Linda, so he can have his way with her. Yet when Dr. Flint does get Linda alone, all he does is berate her, speaking in the languagehe saw fit. His specialized treatment of Linda causes many conflicts between Dr. and Mrs. Flint. Tension between them escalates to the point of Dr. Flint announcing his intention to take his youngest daughterto sleep in his apartment. Dr. Flint is flexing his muscle in the relationship. Although Mrs. Flint has slaves to take care of her child, separating her from the daughter is Dr. Flint showing that he is in control. It is as if he only is doing this as a punishment; as a way to remind his wife he wears the pants. But not only does he threaten to take the daughter, he calls her his daughter. Dr. Flint using his means that the child entirely belongs to him; therefore, Mrs. Flint has no say; she is voiceless. As Mrs. Flint is voicelessand, therefore, powerlessshe cannot stop Dr. Flint from taking their daughter to his apartment and enlisting Linda to be the one to take care of her. As Dr. Flint is known to be the father of eleven slaves, the extra time in his apartment that he spends with Linda vexes Mrs. Flint to the point that she undergoes extreme measures to

Harris 3 discover what the two do when they are alone. She makes Linda swear on the Bible to tell the truth of what is happening between her and Dr. Flint; she imitates Dr. Flint while Linda is sleeping in order to see how she will respond to his advances, and she uses cruel mind tricks to get Linda to accuse Dr. Flint of being intimate with her. Yet none of these methods of incrimination work, because Dr. Flint and Linda are not being intimate. While there has been a characterization of Mrs. Flint that paints her as a monster, we finally see a vulnerable side when she is interrogating Linda, which causes a shift in the way that she is viewed. Linda notes, as I went on with my accounther color changed frequently, [and] she wept. However, Linda is not blind to the fact that the emotion is not for the clear victim: herself, the slave. These emotions rose because of anger and wounded pride, desecrated marriage vows, and insulted dignity. Still as Linda knows that she is the object of her mistresss jealousy and hatred, she still cannot find it within herself to hate Mrs. Flint; conversely, Linda pities and could not blame her. Linda argues that Mrs. Flint is only reacting as any woman would to the notion that her husband is sleeping with someone else. Here Linda portrays an advanced level maturity and perception, even though, as a slave, she is seen to be the most ignorant person in the triangular relationship. She can recognize that, even through there has been malice enacted towards her by the slave mistress, the slave mistress deserves pity, not contempt, because she is as hopeless and as much a victim as the slaves. Yet as it is easy for us, as contemporary readers, to feel anger and to feel hatred towards Mrs. Flint, Linda still feels pity for her. Lindas ability of awareness allows her to see that although she is a slave and Mrs. Flint is her mistress, in the Flint household there is not a vast amount of difference between them. They are both voiceless. They are both, ultimately, powerless. So we have to question, even with the portrayal of her being a monster, if we can

Harris 4 truly be mad at the slave mistress? Additionally, is she truly a jealous mistress? Or, knowing the ways of her husband does she act accordingly? The southern woman gets married, acquires slaves, and is kind, caring, and compassionate to them in the beginning. Linda calls them poor girls for they have romantic notions of a sunny climeto what disappointments they are destined. However, with the slave masters perfidy, and children of every shade of complexion playing with her own fair babies, does the slave mistress not have the right to be vigilant? To be untrusting? She undoubtedly has the right to be jealous of the slaves; they receive, although helplessly and unwanted, what she took vows in front of God for: her husband. And she certainly has the right to be suspicious of her husband, because he views his vows to her as a joke. Her love is a joke. In respect, he views her is a joke. The slave mistress has a feigned authority and position in slavery, and the slave master is not only aware of this, but he capitalizes upon it. He treats her with as much neglect as he does the slaves. Therefore, her malevolence is her pleading cry to be seen; she is letting us know that she is present, that she has a voice, and that she, most importantly, matters. Knowing all of this, Jacob argues that we should not hate the jealous mistress for she did not choose nor intend to become that, but we should pity her, because just like a slave, her life is a life unwanted. At this point Dr. Flints power and control seems to be untouchable, yet there is one person associated with Linda who makes him uneasy: her grandmother. When Linda threatens to seek her grandmother for protection, she says that Dr. Flint threatened me with death, and worse than death. Moreover, when slaves stated that they would like to be sold, they were condemned and made to feel bad about what they said, because their master would enumerate all of the courtesies that were extended to them as if these courtesies excused their malice. Yet when Lindas grandmother tries on numerous occasions to buy her, Dr. Flint exclaims Linda does not

Harris 5 belong to me. She is my daughters property, and I have no legal right to sell her. Dr. Flint truly is a cunning man, and Linda notices it. She says, he was too scrupulous to sell me; but he had no scruples whatever about committing a much greater wrong against the helpless young girl placed under his guardianship, as his daughters property. Here a flustered Dr. Flint is able to lawfully dodge Lindas grandmother, but he is completely aware that she is the one woman that he cannot control. Therefore, to Lindas grandmother Dr. Flint must reference legalities and even feign a sense of paternal care for her. However, if he were speaking to any of his slaves, or even his wife, would he have needed to be as thorough? Through characters like Lindas grandmother, Jacobs presents us with a gap, or weakness, in the slave masters power: the free black, especially one in the south. Because with the free black, the slave master cannot flex his power as he would with a slave or his wife. He has to become extra cunning in his methods to gain control. Is the grass always greener on the other side? In slave society, unless you were a slave master, the answer is no. Linda is a slave; she is treated with malice and is the object of her mistresss jealousy. Mrs. Flint is a slave mistress; she is unwillingly jealous and has no voice or power. Lindas grandmother is a free woman in the South; even though Dr. Flint cannot exert direct authority over her, he can still coerce her with his white male privilege. And Dr. Flint is a slave master; he is the man. In the patriarchal slave society of the South, Jacobs shows us that it is really is a white mans world.