Journal #30 Harriet Jacobs: More Of The Zombie Life!!!

QUOTE:

“My condition was now a little improved. 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 1823).


SUMMARY:

After finding a hiding place in the small shed attached to her grandmother’s house, Linda Brent (Jacobs) must deal with the horrible conditions of the crawl space that became her new home.


RESPONSE:

Harriet Jacobs was one tough cookie! I bet I’d do the same thing though because I’m always curling up in a little ball, which actually drives my sister crazy. I think if I was scared for my life I could stay in a small space, however, I don’t know about having red bugs crawling all over me and biting me. Maybe after hiding there for seven years, weeks of red bugs crawling on me wouldn’t seem too bad, but I think I’d have a nervous breakdown.

The other incidents that Jacobs deals with while in her hiding place are also pretty terrible, but I think it was probably more psychologically terrible, as opposed to being physically hurt or bitten. She lived seven years of her life kind of like a voyeur! Except, I don’t think Jacobs enjoyed any minute of it, and especially since she got to witness how Dr. Flint would stop at nothing to find her and punish her. Jacobs also could only watch her children growing up, instead of being able to talk to them, hold them, or just be a mother to them.

This seems like a real case of the zombie life from my earlier journal about Equiano! Even though her grandmother knew she was there and would help her out most of the time, it seems like Jacobs was alive in a coffin. Luckily from what she writes at the end of the reading, Jacobs just focused on her good memories whenever she would think about any of the absolutely horrible experiences she had.