Black women oppression in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

This study is conducted to analyze the views and ideas of black feminism as reflected through the female characters in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. It tells about black women plight and degradation in slavery. Applying feminist literary criticism is very interesting because there are many literary works that revealed women’s oppression such in the real world. Where, women are not seen as a person but more as an object of man domination. Furthermore, women always assumed as the second sex creature and inferior. By studying more about feminist literary criticism we will be more sensitive to the problem that we faced in the real life, because while we are analyzing literary work, there are many useful things we get.

This study is aimed to answer the statements of the problems that consist of: 1.what the oppressions are faced by black women in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl? 2. what do the black women do against the oppression in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl?
2.
After analyzing the data, the researcher finds several oppressions faced by black women. Those are (1) Racia Discrimination, (2) The Black Women Trading, (3) Physical and Emotional Violence, (4) Domestic Work, (5) Anguish. All of that oppression happens because of lack of awareness that human being both man and woman, or black or white have equal right and opportunity. Furthermore, nineteenth century is the rising era of slavery, and the time when the civil war began. Thus, the condition is not safe and there is no balance in life. In addition, the researcher also finds the efforts that have done by black women in obtaining their freedom

This research is aimed at enriching the theoretical basis of literary studies, especially those are related to the feminist literary criticism and expected to be the alternative information for other researcher in conducting the similar research. Furthermore, the researcher hopes for the next researchers who are interested in the same object to study and analyze deeply. Talking about black women in this novel is very surprising, because black women have complicated problem. They faced triple oppression, as black women who get racial discrimination, as women in patriarchal society and as a slave. In this case, the researcher hopes that the further researcher, who is interested in the same novel and the same approach, will conduct analysis on another aspect. For instance, the struggle of woman in gaining the equal right in political world or women oppression in patriarchal society.