William

In the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl we find out about William running away to be in the free states. William decides to run away because he is sick of and cant stand being a slave anymore. One thing Mr. Sands always did was treat him like a son and didn't disrespect him at all. William may not have been treated like a slave, but he was and always would have been know as being a slave. In the book William does talk about how some slave masters have treated their slaves kindly, but then eventually have become traders and total turned on them. William didn't even want the chance of this happening to him and he didn't like being known as a slave anyway so he ran away to the free states. I believe that his actions were more than justified. Nobody should ever even have to be a slave in their life and if he didn't feel safe being with Mr. Sands and didn't like being a slave then he definitely had the right to run away to the free states. 

Possession of the Children

In the book Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl, Mr. Sands finally got possession of the children. At first the children were jailed for months until Mr. Flint even started to think about selling them. At first Mr. Flint was stuck on the idea of never going to or wanting to sell them but finally when  a slave trader came to him with an offer that he couldn't refuse. So Mr. Flint started to think about selling the children because there was always the possibility that the children could die before they were fifteen years old or even sooner. Thinking about this Mr. Flint thought he could make a very could profit out of them with them having the chance of dying soon so he finally sold the children. Before this ever even happened Mr. Sands had an agreement with the guy that bought them from Mr. Flint that he would sell them to him. Without this agreement Mr. Sands probably wouldn't have ever had the opportunity of getting the children because Mr. Flint wouldn't have allowed that to happen. The only reason Linda trusts Mr. Sands is because she has had a long relationship with him and as long as se has been friends with him he had promised to always help her if she was any need. This was the time of Linda's need so he helped her. I think it is a good idea for Mr. Sands to have the children because even though they are his slaves he will treat them with a lot more nicely than Mr. Flint did. 

Necklace

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Linda's daughter was given a golden necklace out of kindness from a lady. When Linda saw her give her daughter the necklace she was very upset and reminded her of the past. Linda becomes very upset with the necklace given to her daughter because it reminds her of the chains in slavery. She relates the gold chain to chains used in slavery and how hurtful they are to slaves. She thinks about how she never wants her child to ever feel what it feels like to be in chains. Even though it is just a necklace Linda can't think of it in any other way than chains in slavery. I understand where Linda is coming from when she doesn't like the idea of her daughter having a chain around her neck, but the necklace was given because the lady felt bad for her not because she was mean and was relating it to slaves. I also don't think she should have over reacted the way she did because a necklace is a lot different than the chains slaves had to wear. Overall I believe that why Linda was upset was understandable, but she shouldn't have over reacted when all the lady was doing was trying to be nice. 

Favorite Passage

"Dr. Flint was an epicure. The cook never sent a dinner to his table without fear and trembling; for if there happened to be a dish not to his liking, he would either order her to be whipped, or compel her to eat every mouthful of it in his presence. The poor, hungry creature might not have objected to eating it; but she did object to having her master cram it down her throat till she choked." I liked this passage for a couple of reasons. First off when I read this passage I thought it was very disturbing for what the masters did to the slaves just because he didn't like his meal. It does a good job of showing how the slaves were really treated and also shows that no matter how unimportant something is that the slave does wrong they still get severally punished. I liked how the slave did stand up for herself by at least not letting him shove it down her throat, which shows that she does have some respect for herself that she knows she doesn't deserve that. Overall I really like how this passage describes how slaves were truly treated beyond disrespectful and how even though they got beaten they still had a limit to what they would take as a punishment. 

Love in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

In the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Love is almost or pretty much a impossible thing to do when you are a slave. If a slave does find either another slave that they love or a free slave then most likely their master or mistress will stop them from either seeing each other or threaten to do something if they don't stop loving each other. Even if a slave is able to get married, which is highly unlikely if they were to have kids they would be sold into slavery and everyone in the family could be sold and separated from the rest of the family. Also with the effect of slave owners threatening to beat them or do something else if they fall in love with another slave or someone else then  it makes it even harder to stay in love with that person due to the fact of the slave owners doing everything they can to stop it from happening. I don't find it right in any way that slave owners should stop their slaves from falling in love with someone even if then they were considered to them as "property". 

Reaction to the Image of Slavery

In the first few chapters of Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl I noticed that Linda Brent wasn't even aware that she was a slave. It seemed as if she thought this was all that ever happened in life and felt as she was loved and wasn't mistreated in any way. It wasn't until she was six years old when she finally realized that she was a slave and what a slave was. When she knew she was a slave she didn't even really care because her mistress treated her like a mother and didn't feel like a slave. When I first think of slavery i think about how slaves used to run away from getting beat and severally mistreated. This is very powerful because it shows how some slaves were treated almost like family even though they were considered as slaves. Jacobs describes how slavery was but also talks about Linda Brent's life. After Linda Brent's mistress died she was sold to a different slave owner where she realized how rough and horrifying slavery is. Linda is forced and yelled to do things with her new slave owner and almost cant believe it is happening. I found it very interesting how Jacobs describes Linda's life while also describing slavery during the time. 

In class discussion

In class we discussed the different symbols in the book. We talked about the green light, the valley of ashes, and the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. Something we didn't talk about in class is which one we found the most significant. If i was asked which one i found most significant in the book i would choose the green light. I find the green light the most significant because it is the most focused symbol used in the book i feel. Both Mr. Gatsby and Nick use the green light as either an example or a dream.  Mr. Gatsby uses it as a dream towards Daisy when Nick uses it as an example towards early America. The symbol of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg is also used quit frequently, but is not as significant as the green light. 

The Great Gatsby Chapter 9 Question

In chapter nine of The Great Gatsby it talks about Mr. Gatsby's funeral. At the funeral barely anyone comes. The only people to attend the funeral are Nick, Owl Eyes, some of his servants, and his father also known as Henry C. Gatz. Nick did call Mr. Gatsby's close friends Meyer Wolfshiem and Klipspringer, but they both said they couldn't attend due to other things. When I first read about only this few amount of people showing up it made me angry because all of the people who attended his parties and claimed to be his friend when he was alive all ditched him. It seemed like nobody cared that he had passed away. It shows that all the people who went to his parties were all using him because he was wealthy. Towards the begging of the book when i read about the parties I could also tell that people didn't really care about him because nobody care to find out what he did and everyone just made up stories about him. Overall for the people who came it showed that those people really had a relationship with him and had feelings for him. For the people who didn't come it was meant to show us that if you have nice things and a lot of money then most likely a lot of people will just use you and not care for you at all.