Mrs. Flint shows Harriet just how morally corrupting the system of slavery really is. Instead of holding her husband accountable for his serial philandering, she puts all the blame onto Harriet, seeing her as a craven temptress rather than a cruelly exploited slave.
To some extent, Mrs. Flint is also a victim of the peculiar institution in that it encourages white men to force themselves upon their female slaves, thus breaking their marriage vows. But instead of developing a sense of solidarity with Harriet, Mrs. Flint hates her guts, seeing her as responsible for her husband's infidelity. Not only that, but she actually joins with her husband, the man responsible for all her feelings of jealousy and rage, in trying to track down Harriet after she escapes.
What all this demonstrates is the corrosive effect of slavery on the human soul, how it turns traditional notions of right and wrong completely upside-down.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
How did Dr. Flint’s wife influence Harriet’s life in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment