INTRODUCTION

Incidents in the life of a slave Girl  and The Color Purple was written by Harriet Jacobs and Alice Walker respectively. Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl was one of the first slave narratives written by a woman which took an interesting view on slavery Harriet Jacob completed the manuscript in 1858.

The color purple is an epistolary novel written by Alice Walker and was published in 1982. The story focuses on black female life in the 1930s in the South of the United States of America addressing numerous issue including their exceedingly low position  in American society.

Background to Study

When writing about the African American woman it will be proper to talk about slavery because the African Americans are linked to this history Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl is a novel by Harriet Jacobs under the pseudonym name Linda Brent.

It was one of the first slave narratives written by a woman and it took an interesting look on slavery and slave trade not just from the eyes of a slave but a slave with children. Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl gained a number is approval and several of this contained in Nellie Y. Mckay and Francis Smith Foster’s co edited Norton critical edition of their narrative.

The black antislavery activist William C. Nell in a 21 July 1861 letter to William Lloyd Garrison, he described Incidents in The Life of A Slave Girl as a “Handsome volume of 306 pages’ that “presents features more attractive than many of it’s predecessors purporting to be histories of slave life in America” (p.161).

Incidents in The Life of A Slave Girl deals primarily with the period of Jacob’s life from her childhood in Edenton through her late twenties when she arrived in Philadelphia. Jacob’s story fits easily into the freedom narrative subgenre of African American literature and as such it serves also as a political document that officially charged the American justice system for its complicity in the many deprivations and abuses associated with chattel slavery. Harriet Jacob borrowed conventions and narrative strategies from two popular nineteenth century literary forms: The women’s domestic sentimental novel and the autobiographical narrative of a journey from slavery to freedom. Harriet Jacobs narrative also senses as a historical document that contains numerous references to actual historic landmarks, events and persons.

Due to the fact that it is an antebellum freedom narrative, incidents in The life of a Slave Girl comes with an accompanying set of genuine, as having been written by the author, as containing a true account of the narrators experience , such documents include letters, prefaces, introductions, or simple statement preceding the body of a freedom narrative.

Jacobs focuses on the manner in which American law worked to keep slavery and gender discrimination In place. Harriet Jacobs continues with her engagement with the American law, particularly it’s complicity in the sexual and reproductive lives of enslaved women, by expressing her disdain for the laws that make human beings the property of slaveholders.

For Linda Brent this means saying no to Flint’s claim of ownership of her mind, body and offspring. Included in Flint’s legally sanctioned claim in among other things the right to win Linda’s sexuality, but as Jacob reveals it is not merely a matter of sexual submission.

Alice walker was born in 1944 in Tonton a State in Georgia. Alice Walker read and admired Flannery O’Connor’s works at the age of eight, her brother playing with a toy gun shot her eye, the eye got bad. This sad event affected her in two ways, firstly she was ashamed of herself and live an isolated life. She decides to be alone, she separates her self while lonely she got a friend and this friend helped her in writing her thoughts.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker was published in 1982 and it’s an epistolary novel which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Friction and the National Book Award for Fiction The Color Purple is often used an example of ‘woman novel”.

Tuddier Harris in black American literature Forum  stated that, The Color Purple  has “become the  classic novel by a black woman” because “the pendulum determining focus on black writers had swung in their favour….” Alice Walker had been waiting in  the wings of feminist movement”.

Priscilia Lader too in her essay “Alice Walker’s American quilt, The Colour Purple and American Literary Tradition” says that The Color Purple  includes pieces of American literary tradition in a pattern whereby both the product and process of quilting and quilts provide an outlet for thwarted energies, record a family’s  history by incorporating it’s development between characters even more importantly, they embody the ideal of unity in diversity which embody the ideal of unity in diversity which permits Alice Walker’s writing of a quilt like individuals in a pluralistic society. They retain their original identities while functioning as parts of something else. Just as the star like pieces in the “sister’s choice” pattern remain recognizable.

Objectives

This work is aimed at demonstrating that the woman is not only meant to be relegated in the society and that she should be given equal rights as the man because she has a part to play. Hence rather than pushing her to an inferior space, the world should give her an opportunity to prove her worth and might. In other words this work is intended to show how the woman has evolved from just being a cook and child bearer to occupying prominent positions in our contemporary society.

Significance of study

The importance of this study is to show how the African American woman after all the suffering from slavery, marginalization and sexism, she still fought for the total liberation from all these obstacles which caused her life to be a living hell.

Statement of Problem

Women suffered more during the slavery period, this gave reasons to some prominent female writers who though it wise to write down their experiences, others who were not part of slavery or experience it drew inspiration from the lives of those who went through it. Alice Walker is an example.

The problem posed here is the way the African American woman was marginalized and deprived of her dignity. As an African American she went through a lot will therefore portray the inconveniences the African American woman faced and how she managed to overcome all her fears and obstacles.

Research questions

1. If given equal opportunities are women going to be able to give a helping hand in the development of the society?
2. Though full of natural love, why can’t the woman be given equal rights to express herself as every human ought to?
3. What happens to the natural talents of the woman who has no opportunity?

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