Slave narratives: Life of a female slave

Abstract

This bachelor thesis analyzes slave narratives of African American women in the United States during the 19th century. Its goal is to examine aspects of female slaves' lives depicted in Harriet A. Jacobs's Incidents in a Life of a Slave Girl, and Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. The thesis details family lives, slave marriages, focuses on motherhood and the sorrows of mothers separated from their children, and the influence of religion on slaves' lives as they were portrayed in those selected works. Also, it draws attention to the suffering and torturing, including whippings, beatings, sexual abuse as well as emotional torment, enslaved women had to endure while they were in bondage. Furthermore, the thesis deals with issues concerning gaining freedom and with authors' lives after that.