Jacobs 7/14/09

I found Harriet Jacobs's "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" to be very interesting as well as compelling when compared to Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin". The obvious difference between the two is that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is all fictional and written by a white woman who had no idea what it was like to be a slave, much less even knowing what it was like to be an African-American back then. Jacobs's work is mostly nonficitonal and written from experience. I find this difference to be the basis of comaprison between the two works. While Stowe is writing from her perspective, Jacobs is offering hers, which is way more factual coming from experience. "Where laughter is not mirth; nor thought the mind; nor words a language; no e'en men manking. Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows, and each is tortured in his separate hell." I found this quote to be extremely influential in comparing Jacobs's work to Stowe's. While Stowe is somewhat igniting the reader to feel pity for the slaves, Jacobs was describing what it was actually like to be one. This quote displays the actions and feelings of what it was like to be a slave, tormented every day of their lives while in that hell. I felt that Jacobs reached out to the reader to show what happened "behind the scenes". Though "Uncle Tom's Cabin" may have been more influential over time, I felt that Jacobs came straight from the heart, giving it more legitimacy.