CLOSE READING PAPER ON CHAPTER XXI IN HARRIET JACOBS' INCIDENT IN TEH LIFE OF A SLAVE GIR.
...never he wanted to but Harriet was determined to not to enter the house. The description of the hits he would give her and her response she would give regardless how hard he hit her tells me that she was a strong will woman who was not going to be another victim. She went as far as to date another white man secretly in hopes that he would buy her freedom. She expresses greatly how she regretted this, but had to write it in her story, because of the promise she kept to herself. She became pregnant, and told Dr. Flint in hopes that he would never want her again, but the only punishment that prevailed was the punishment when felt when her good grandmother realized that she was pregnant and had slept with a white man. Her grandmother yelled and told her to leave and never return to her home. Harriet experience pain in so many areas in her life. Her grandmother was her only relative she had besides her younger brother. Her grandmother rejection hurt her more than any other insult or beaten she had received. After attempts to explain to her grandmother the reasons of what she did. She received her. Dr. Flint treated Harriet horrible, she didn’t receive good medical attention when she gave birth to her first son. Despite of his disgust he still attempted to show sexually advances toward her. So she became pregnant again. This time she gave birth to a girl. Dr. Flint looked at the child and knew exactly who the child belonged to and out of rage he cut her hair off. Harriet had long pretty hair because she had some white descendants in her blood line. She would wear it in different styles and walked around with pride. Several years pasted and she decided to escape Dr. Flints’ plantation. Her uncle had build a new room onto her grandmother’s house and there in the small attic, in between the shingles and ceiling is where she hid for seven years. She was tormented day and night by red mites that bore into her skin and rats that daily ran over her body. Her kids couldn’t know where she was in fear that they would mention it to someone and be caught. There was no light and little oxygen, not even enough room to get on her knees and crawl. These conditions alone can describe to the reader the desperation she had for a better life. She long to see or her children but couldn’t risk it. I know the nights were lo...