ipl-logo

Linda Brent's Expectations Of White Womanhood

1169 Words5 Pages

Even though Linda Brent (Harriet Jacobs) was expected to fulfill the expectations of white womanhood, she was not able to because of the setbacks she encountered, which include preserving her purity for her future husband, accepting pieties, staying submissive to the man in charge, and maintaining a safe domesticity. According to Barbara Weller, “Piety was the core of woman’s virtue, the source of her strength” (Weller. 152). Linda Brent had a hard time keeping this outlook because she justified that God would not let Mr. Flint sell her children or cause them harm unless He were not real or wished for a negative outcome. As stated by Brent, “O my Child! Perhaps they will leave you in some old cabin to die” (Jacobs, Another Link to Life). She …show more content…

Slavery prevented Brent from fulfilling the expectation of white womanhood by being restraint from preserving her purity. She believed that baring a white man’s child would mean she could be bought and taken better care of, along with her child at the time. As stated by Brent, “My strongest weapon with him was gone” (Brent, The New Tie to Life). If she were to have not been a slave, she would have been able to keep her purity. According to Brent, “The painful and humiliating memory will haunt me to my dying day” Brent, A Perilous Passage in The Slave Girl’s Life). She regrets going against God’s words, but had to give away her purity in hopes of freedom. In reference to Welter, “Woman must preserve her virtue until marriage and marriage was necessary for her happiness. Yet marriage was, literally, an end to innocence” (Welter, 158). Not being able to live up to what the North had in mind for white womanhood, meant that she was deemed unworthy of happiness just for the fact she tried to free herself by giving up her virtue. Linda Brent was also prevented from the high expectations of preserving her purity due to Dr. Flint pressuring her countless times. As stated by Brent, “When I found that my master had actually begun to build the lonely cottage, other feelings mixed with those I have described” (Brent, A Perilous Passage in The Slave Girl’s Life). She was hinting at an occurrence between Dr. Flint and herself, where it seems that he was pressuring her into giving him her purity. It was hard for anyone to stay pure if they were always coerced or even forced to engage in any sexual

Show More
Related

  • Differences Between Lincoln And Frederick Douglass

    691 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lydia Maria Child wanted her to play hardball on the slavery, equality

    Read More

  • Angela Davis: A Social Activist

    869 Words  | 4 Pages

    To be specific, she situates the imminent feminist struggle by highlighting the legacy of slavery among black people, and black women in particular. “Black women bore the terrible burden of equality in oppression” (Davis). Due to her race, her writing focuses on what she understood and ideas that are relevant to black females. Conversely, since white men used black women in domestic labor and forcefully rape these individuals. These men used this powerful weapon to remind black women of their female and vulnerability.

    Read More

  • Of Mice And Men: The American Dream

    1271 Words  | 6 Pages

    Curley’s wife is described as an attention seeking woman who is desperate and yearns for recognition because of her loneliness and her unsuccessful dream of being an actress. In section 6, Curley’s wife desperately tells Lennie her story of when she was young, she was promised fame and a chance to be on a show, “but my (Curley’s wife) ol’ lady wouldn’ let me (Curley’s wife)”. This expresses that there are always obstacles that prevent people from succeeding just like how her mother refuses to let her be in the show and be an actress to get the attention she always yearns for. People start off with great potential, viewing their dream as obtainable and as their biggest motivation, but in this cruel world, they are only reaching for a tragic aim. Moreover, Curley’s wife expresses that she will never stay in a place where she “couldn’t get nowhere or make something of myself (herself)”, but what she does contradicts what she says, instead of having a better life or gaining recognition, she marries Curley and is back into a similar or even worse situation she started from.

    Read More

  • White Women In Early America Essay

    1647 Words  | 7 Pages

    Early American social hierarchies differed markedly for women of color—whether free or enslaved—whose relationships to the white regimes of early America were manifold and complex. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, women in the colonies of the English West Indies and Carolinas, particularly women of color, were seen as subordinate by white male slave owners because of race and shared oppression of the female gender. However, these women were a means of economic gain for white slave owners. Taken from Africa to the New World as slave laborers, white slave owners valued these women for their ability in domestic work and fieldwork where they performed primarily unskilled agricultural tasks, as well as their potential to bear children. White slave owners of the Early Americas, driven by greed and opportunism, used political laws, physical characteristics of women, and social constructs of gender roles to appropriate

    Read More

  • Willie Lynch's Stereotypes In The Life Of A Black Woman

    1331 Words  | 6 Pages

    When you look at me what do you see? To society, I’m a black female who fits the stereotypical “wanna-be” black female wanting to have white hair textures. They watch carefully as I walk past them; afraid of my “black girl capabilities” solely based off of stereotypes that have been carelessly passed down from generation to generation. They think, “She’s probably unhappy with her dark complexion”. They wonder, “Why does she look so angry, it’s probably just another angry black woman.”

    Read More

  • Stereotypes Of African American Women Essay

    685 Words  | 3 Pages

    African American women make up eight percent of the United States population, the women in this minority group deal with negative and positive stereotypes on a daily basis. These stereotypes are apparent within mainstream media. With today’s children having more access to media. now more than ever, they are subjected to these stereotypes at a young age (Adams-Bass, Bentley-Edwards, & Stevenson, 2014, n.p.). When blacks have more Afrocentric features like thick lips, bigger noses, or a darker skin tone, they are more likely to have a negative stereotype towards them (Conrad, Dixon, & Zhang, 2009, n.p.).

    Read More

  • Tone In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

    263 Words  | 2 Pages

    He made her stay in the house all day. Unwilling to comply, she would sneak out to talk to the workmen. The men on the farm however, percived curleys wife as a “tramp”, beacuase of the sexual image she brought upon herself. Making them stop approching and conversing with her. she felt alone, seeing that she had no friends, no future,

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

    1288 Words  | 6 Pages

    Her tragedy reflects not only the sexism in the African American families in early 20th century, but also the uselessness

    Read More

  • Evelyn White Women

    1538 Words  | 7 Pages

    “Each house-hunting trip I’ve made to the countryside has been fraught with two emotions: elation at the prospect of living closer to nature and a sense of absolute doom at what might befall me in the backwoods” (White 1064). In her essay, “Black Women and the Wilderness, Evelyn White describes her contradictory feelings about nature, and throughout her text, her experiences display a very complex perspective of nature. Raymond Williams, in his article, “Nature” describes the word ‘nature’ as the most complex word in language (Williams 219). When referring nature, people generally think of it representing something of peace, comfort, and a place where most can feel safe, almost as if it were a home. White revises our understanding of nature

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Mark Twain's Pudd Nhead Wilson

    1335 Words  | 6 Pages

    “Motherhood is somewhat difficult for a slave like Roxy because children of slave women were legally slaves, regardless of the status of their fathers” (Rasmussen 199). Although her love for her child is unceasing, it is her decisions that, eventually, bring him into

    Read More

  • Being Black Women In America Essay

    483 Words  | 2 Pages

    An obstacle that my mother has faced is being Black Muslim women in America. It 's more of a problem than what reaches the surface and mainstream media. It 's rarely talked about in America. In america there are people who want to smear our entire faith and say that Islam is an inherently violent religion. These are exciting times to be an American Muslim.

    Read More

  • Of Mice And Men Curley's Wife Discrimination Analysis

    796 Words  | 4 Pages

    Curley’s wife’s relationship with her husband and everyone on the ranch is a perfect example of how women were treated during the Great

    Read More

  • Examples Of Sexism In Of Mice And Men

    1644 Words  | 7 Pages

    Aforementioned, Curley 's wife represents discrimination towards women, she is constantly looked down upon and isn 't treated with respect. However, when she is talking to Crooks, “‘Well, you keep your place then, n*****. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain 't even funny,’”(OMAM 81). Crooks and Curley 's wife go through something similar. They are both discriminated based on a difference that the other men on the farm don’t have.

    Read More

  • Connotation In The Horse Dealer's Daughter

    1122 Words  | 5 Pages

    D.H Lawrence, the author of “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter”, was married to a German wife during World War 1. He described his years living in England as “Miserable… because his wife was of German origin, and oppressed by disgust at what was happening to his country,” (Bausch 453). Lawrence’s wife making him feel oppressed caused him to write about women in a negative connotation. In “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” Lawrence writes about three brothers and a sister that were left in debt after the passing of their father. The daughter, Mabel, was expected to go live with her married sister.

    Read More

  • Essay On Mary Wollstonecraft Concept Of Education

    801 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wollstonecraft emphasized the value of education for women, but she called for something more than opportunities to learn needle work and social graces. She stressed that a woman’s education should shape body, mind, and emotions, eventually leading to a sense of independence. Although Wollstonecraft’s thinking was a head of her time, it reflected philosophies of the Enlightenment, which championed the power of education, social reform, and moral worth and development as the right of individuals including women. Education was necessary for women, and through moral education women would acquire virtue, knowledge and honesty. For Wollstonecraft, lack of education was the cause of all feminine misery, and since women were denied the opportunity to expand their mental activities in many cases, they could never attain virtue.

    Read More

More about Linda Brent's Expectations Of White Womanhood

Open Document