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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

community and identity, many slaves find themselves strongly attached to religion. They cannot build a family structure and they cannot be identified by family name, but through the church, they can build a community and identify themselves as Christians. This comfort becomes virtually non-existent for it too is controlled by the slaveowners who “came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters” (57). The fact that one person could have the ability to control the amount of religion another person has and his purpose for having it diminishes any sense of community or identity that it may have initially provided. Many slaves felt that the answers to their problems lied in a place that was unattainable by most of them, the Bible, and that to read and interpret it would afford them “access to and participation in the discursive formations of bourgeois society” (Mullen, 256), thus allowing them to finally taste “the water of life” (61). However, for Linda, possession of such a gift did not prove this assertion. Rather than a deserved sense of pride, Linda’s literacy served only as a means by which Dr. Flint could abuse her. For years, she was subjected to his lascivious writings and psychological torment, due in part to his knowledge of her ability to read. Even her elaborate scheme, which drove Dr. Flint to and from New York, provided only the temporary satisfaction of watching him vainly and falsely pursue her because, like slavery, Dr. Flint would always return more forcefully than before. His returning presence affirmed that her freedom from him was as fictional as her letters and that she was as likely to find freedom in her present situation as he was to find her in New York The refuge that one often finds within the confines of family and self are unattainable in the life of a slave because, in e...

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