I use more quotations to prove my ideas in this draft. I also try to talk more about the genre, rhetoric and ethos.

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda makes the decision to hide in her grandmother’s loft and finally escape to north with her children. This decision was quite hard to make for the enslaved people at that time since few of them can read or know about the situation in north; all they see in their entire life may just be other enslaved people suffer and suffer and die. Also, Linda’s grandmother, who wants all her children and grandchildren stay together, doesn’t want her to do so. The author paves the way for her important decisions and shows the readers her ethos and how she finally chooses the way.

The first crucial decision Linda makes in her life is detail described in Chapter 1: Childhood, “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away”. Linda has two identifications about herself: one is a slave, which is told by others after she is six; one is a normal free person, which is her own feeling before six. And since she learns read and write, she is intelligent enough to think about her own life: “I was now old enough (twelve) to begin to think of the future; and again and again I asked myself what they would do with me.” Clearly, Linda thinks deeply about her life and her identification——she chooses a normal free person. So the readers of the book should view her as an autonomous decision-maker, instead of a normal enslaved person who was owned by others. The readers are attracted by her two controversial identities. Linda’s decision shows her ethos as minded and independent. As she writes in Chapter 18: Months of Peril, “Give me liberty, or give me death”, she wants liberty deeply in her heart, which is one of the main reason she escapes to the North.

The experiences of other enslaved people the author mentions in Chapter 3: The Slaves’ New Year’s Day, also plays an important role on the decision Linda makes later. These experiences show Linda the miserable destiny she may face in the future. “I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was brought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away.” Linda saw a poor enslaved mother lose all her children hopelessly: “she wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, ‘Gone! All gone! Why don't God kill me?’” The author uses a simple pair of words, “some” and “all”, to show the despair of the enslaved mother. The mother even doesn’t wish all her children stay with her: she knows “some” will be taken, she just wishes some children may stay. But the life cruelly takes “all” her children without any mercy. There is no denying that this experience shock Linda a lot, which makes her try everything to protect her children when she become a mother later. So she has an extremely desperate plan when she finds out that her children are treat badly as she used to, even she knows that escaping to north with two little children is nearly impossible. Linda shows her deep love and responsible for her two kids: “I had done all in my power to make my children comfortable during the time I expected to be separated from them.” Her behaviors also make contrast to the male characters who abandon everything to escape. As Pittman says, moral characters of motherhood are essential to show that enslaved women’s womanhood (Black Women Writers and the Trouble with Ethos: Harriet Jacobs, Billie Holiday, and Sister Souljah): they are normal women just like the free white women, they should be and deserve to be treated fairly. The author attracts readers by the tense and twisted plots here, showing the difficult situation Linda has.

The pain Linda suffers as an enslaved person also helps her make this essential decision. As Chapter 4: The Slave Who Dare to Feel Like a Man mentions the first time for Linda to be punished, she is forced to walk barefoot on snow. “I took them (shows) off, and my stockings also. She then sent me a long distance, on an errand. As I went through the snow, my bare feet tingled. That night I was very hoarse; and I went to bed thinking the next day would find me sick, perhaps dead.” As an enslaved person, Linda faces an illiberal life for being owned by others. Her owner, Dr Flint, also torture and force her to have a sexual relationship with him as early as she was 15. As she says, “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.”

The author shows her fear and despair that she can’t protect her own purity. She is not in the shadow of law, but abandoned by it. “But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I should have been spared the painful task of confessing what I am now about to relate; but all my prospects had been blighted by slavery. I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me. I felt as if I was forsaken by God and man; as if all my efforts must be frustrated; and I became reckless in my despair.” (A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life) The audience of this part is free women, attracting them by despair experience they never know, how bad and dark is slavery. As Yellin mentions, the author reveals that “the model of sexual behavior mandated for free white women was forbidden to black slave women”. (Legacy profile Harriet Ann Jacobs) That’s the twist point she decided to be with Mr. Sand, for the reason at least she can choose who to sleep with. She shows both ideas of abolition and feminism, as Braxton says (The Re-definition of the Slave Narrative Genre), by showing the invasive sexuality from the white owners of the enslaved people. Linda shows her spirit of resistance and heart to freedom. With all the unfair and oppressed life she has and the future unfair life her children may have, she finally decides to escape to the north with her children to begin new and liberal life.

The potential arguments may go against my opinion is that Linda may just revolt her destiny instead of enduring like other enslaved people because she learns much and is able to read and write while most enslaved people don’t. Chapter 7: What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North shows that many enslaved people are ignorant about things in north. “One woman begged me to get a newspaper and read it over. She said her husband told her that the black people had sent word to the queen of 'Merica that they were all slaves; that she didn't believe it, and went to Washington city to see the president about it. They quarrelled; she drew her sword upon him, and swore that he should help her to make them all free. That poor, ignorant woman thought that America was governed by a Queen, to whom the President was subordinate. I wish the President was subordinate to Queen Justice.” Most enslaved people are so ignorant and know nearly nothing about the situation in the north that they don’t even have the idea or believe that they can escape. They don’t have the chance like Linda to learn the freedom in the north nor have so many friends to help them.

Part 1

1. My readers are my professor and classmates of Writing 39B, who are quite familiar with the material and my essay topic. (So I don’t need to mention too much about the plots or background.) They want to see my own opinions about my own topic, instead of just simple summarizing Jacob’s novel or the opinions of authors of second materials.
2. The essay should be objective enough and show evidence to prove my topic. I use too much “I think” instead of objectively giving evidences. I do analyze how the author show Linda’s ethos and how her finally makes the decision to escape to the north with her children.
3. I only have the fact-based claims on the original quotes in my essay. I don’t include any second material or the background of the book.