"Incidents": Written in the Style of the 'Domestic Novel'

Popular in the mid 1800s was a style known simply as the Domestic Novel. It was written by women for women and emphasized the home, family, female chastity and marriage. Although influenced by contemporary writers and friends Lydia Maria Child and Fanny Fern, her greatest influence was Harriet Beecher Stowe and her famous book "Uncle Tom's Cabin(1851)."

In an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of interest created by Beecher's novel, Jacobs used many of the literary contrivances of domestic fiction to draw the same audiences who were so taken with "Uncle Tom's Cabin": white female Northerners. Jacobs refuses, however to adopt the promotion of "true womanhood" that required that women be pure, submissive, modest and humble. She explains this by reiterating many times that "it is not possible for a black slave woman to maintain her chastity and virtue."

Something that Jacobs does take from the Domestic Novel genre and is prolific throughout "Incidents" are the themes of family loyalty, a sense of community and the strong instinct of motherhood. You see it potently portrayed, especially during times of extreme hardship. Jacob's relays the dread of New Year's Day (also known as hiring day to the slaves)for the slave mothers on page 16 of the book.

She says, "One of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was owned by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell them, one by one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met the mother in the street, and her wild, haggard face lives to-day in my mind. She wrong her hands in anguish,and exclaimed, 'Gone! All gone! Why don't God kill me?' I had no words wherewith to comfort her. Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, hourly occurrence."

She goes on to tell of her youngest brother being sold, and her fear that her own children would suffer the same consequences. This same fear prompted her to pretend to run away and instead hide in the attic of her mother's shed for seven years. She was permanently injured because of her incarceration. Do you think she really thought it through having children, with the knowledge that the vile Dr.Flint could use them against her? She was young and convinced herself that he would let her go, but in her heart, do you think this rung true for her?