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Ludovica Ballou

Professor Jones

English 3070

29 April 2023

A Home is a Prison A Home is a Fortress

According to Oxford English Dictionary, home is defined as “a refuge, a sanctuary; a

place or region to which one naturally belongs or where one feels at ease (Oxford English

Dictionary). In terms of slavery, the home is often associated with fear, instability, and anger.

Yet, in Harriett Jacob's Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl, home is portrayed as a prison while

also being a fortress. These two opposing views represent the complexities of how different

people define home.

In Jacob's Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl Linda narrates from a slave’s perspective.

She describes how in the home slaves experience discomfort and unease and the home is viewed

as a prison. For example, Mr. Flint has made numerous sexual advances towards Linda who is

intolerable of it. The continuous efforts of Mr. Flint attempting to sexually win over Linda are

one explanation for how a home can have an eerie or forceful atmosphere. The slave must obey

their master or the slave or the slave's family will be at a detriment. Another reason why slaves

disapprove of homes is what happens to their children. Linda’s role as a mother is dictated by the

plantation owners. She is powerless in choosing how to raise her children. Discovering that her

children are being sent to experience the grueling effects of slavery Linda leaves all things

familiar at an hour she cannot be recognized and runs for her life! “But not that I was certain my

children were to be put in their power, in order to give them a stronger hold on me, I resolved to

leave them that night”(Jacobs 589). Essentially Linda uses her weaknesses and fears to escape
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from a place that she calls home but does not feel like a home. Both scenarios create a yearning

for freedom and represent how Linda perceives home as a place to be fled. Like Linda’s story,

there have been other accounts of slave women who were in a disposition to leave their homes.

“Enslaved women who lived in Washington deliberated over a number of considerations

when contemplating to escape, including living a life wrought with the anxieties of being

returned or killed, the pain of leaving families and loved ones behind if they decided to run

alone, and the sheer uncertainty of surviving and overcoming a lack of resources upon arrival”

(Tamika 17).

Staying in an environment that brings unease and leaving an environment that brings

unease are both akin to a prison. Slaves are faced with adversities when escaping and are at high

risk of being returned to their so-called homes or even murdered. Like these women, Linda

explains the better option for her, was to depart and create a new life for herself. What directly

happens to an individual in a home defines their perspective on what a home represents.

Unfortunately, Linda has a jaded understanding of what a home is and who commands authority

within a home. However, she is surrounded by comfort, love, and trust when her community

willingly protects her from the outside world.

Through Linda’s perilous efforts to escape her uncle, aunt, grandmother, and friends risk

their lives to the extent of protecting her. Linda hides both at a safe house and then at her

grandmother’s house. Ultimately, Linda is searching for a home where she can keep her identity

under wraps. When she is offered lodging at a safehouse she accepts the invitation. “With this,

even though Aunt Martha is free, Linda corroborates what historian Erica Dunbar has found, that
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most bondswomen would have preferred the living quarters occupied by field hands because

even if conditions were rough, such cabins “offered what house slaves longed for: privacy”

(Koritha 57). This part of the story emphasizes that home also provides nurture to the wounded.

In this moment Linda perceives that the physical qualities of a home are not the only

contributions in the building of a home. There are also intangible qualities of these being a place

where an individual is accepted despite his or her actions. The second example, that provides

Linda with safe shelter is at her grandmother’s house. After she leaves Aunt Martha’s safehouse,

she stays at her grandmother's where her uncle has attached a trap door to the garret giving her a

discreet resting place.

The example of Linda living with her grandmother provides a combination of her

viewing a home as a prison and as a fortress. Though she is protected she endures harsh living

conditions to remain out of the limelight. These physical and emotional challenges bring to life

the realities of what it means to live in an environment an individual in the time of slavery

considers home. For example, even though she lives with her grandmother she does not have the

life she does prior to her escaping. Therefore, her living conditions consist of her being confined

to a cramped space, she does not have a lot of opportunities to socialize, she watches her children

grow up from afar, and overall basking in discomfort. For example, while living in the attic

space she encounters insects who brutally bite her. “But for weeks I was tormented by hundreds

of little red insects, fine as a needle’s point, that pierced through my skin, and produced an

intolerable burning” (Jacobs 599). Though even with all the negative factors her grandmother’s

home is simultaneously a fortress. Her grandmother gives her a remedy for healing her ailments.

Linda is withdrawn from society so that her identity is not discovered, and she is not returned to

her former master or even killed. Her family does not shun her they do the opposite by building
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an extension because they believe it is their responsibility to protect someone they love. These

experiences show Linda that a home is synonymous with a knight wearing armor whilst a home

can also be a dragon slayer running from a dragon.

Linda leaves Mr. Flint's home due to her discomfort. However, the goal of slavery was

never for slaves to escape from their homes. Yet, “The making of a proslavery nation required

keeping “home” intact. That in turn required keeping elite slaveholding women and enslaved

people at home in their designated places” (Thavolia 21). Linda defies this end goal of slavery as

she moved from home to home to flee from the monstrosity that slaves were forced to abide by.

By doing so she shows the foundation of a home is when an individual is loved and appreciated.

Only after these qualities are established can a home be intact.

Throughout Jacob's Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl Linda describes how slaves have

a distorted image of what a home should entail. However, Linda does not wear rose-colored

glasses when defining what a home is and what a home is not. Linda experiences how a home is

a prison and how a home is a fortress.

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Works Cited

Harriet, Jacobs. “Chapters from Incidents In The Life of A Slave Girl” in The Dover Anthology of

American Literature: Vol. I,  Bob Blaisdell, ed.   Dover Publications (2014) pp. 589, 599.

Tamika Y. Nunley. At the Threshold of Liberty : Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in

Washington, D.C. The University of North Carolina Press, 2021.

Koritha Mitchell. From Slave Cabins to the White House : Homemade Citizenship in African

American Culture. University of Illinois Press, 2020.

Thavolia Glymph. The Women’s Fight : The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and

Nation. The University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

Discover the story of Englishmore than 600,000 words, over a thousand years (no date) Home :

Oxford English Dictionary. Available at: https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87869?

rskey=OcDPlH (Accessed: April 29, 2023).