Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

Pop quiz: Which classic Brit Lit poem begins with the poet talking about a couch?Answer: William Cowper's "The Task” (1784), which also happens to be the source for Jacobs's chapter title, "The L...

Dr. Flint is definitely a real person and a character in his own right. Jacobs based him on her real-life master and tormenter, Dr. James Norcom, and he seems to have been as awful as she said. I...

Incidents may be an autobiography, but it's also a mythic account of Linda's rise out of slavery and triumph over evil. In that sense, Linda herself is a big, fat symbol: of triumph, of determinati...