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. (Garret (Following her escape from Nicholas Flint's home, Linda…
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Garret
Following her escape from Nicholas Flint's home, Linda spends seven years in a garret. The garret is an extension of Glissant's concept of the Plantation
Weak Boundaries of the Plantation Allow Those Within It to Manipulate the Enclosed Space: Glissant observed that the slaves in the Plantation were able to manipulate the weak boundaries of the Plantation and form "kinship" (Glissant 64) through literature, language, culture. Likewise, in Incidents Linda is able to manipulate the weak boundaries of the Plantation through exercising and subverting the powers within the Plantation
In her confined space, Linda manipulates Dr. Flint by writing letters about her whereabouts, forcing him to spend his money searching for her and waste his time. In doing so, Linda subverts the master/slave relationship by exercising this little bit of agency - she is essentially controlling Dr. Flint, she is the one with power despite being confined
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“The fact that Dr. Flint had written to the mayor of Boston convinced me that he believed my letter to be genuine, and of course that he had no suspicion of my being any where in the vicinity. It was a great object to keep up this delusion, for it made me and my friends feel less anxious, and it would be very convenient whenever there was a chance to escape. I resolved, therefore, to continue to write letters from the north from time to time” (Jacobs 199)
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Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection -- False Freedom: Hartman writes that in the post-antebellum era, "the recognition of humanity held out the promise not of liberating the flesh or redeeming one's suffering but rather of intensifying it [...] the recognition of humanity and individuality acted to tether, bind, and oppress" (Hartman 5). Hartman captures Jacob's struggles in what is termed the 'free states' in the North. Freedom does not truly exist, only a mockery of it does.
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Citations:
Hartman, Saidiya. “Introduction.” in Scenes of Subjection. Quercus, uploaded by Anna Thomas, September 17, 2019, q.utoronto.ca
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. 1861. Google Books, play.google.com/books/readerid=VNK0QUMnoCkC&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA5
Glissant, Édouard. “Closed Place, Open Word.” Quercus, uploaded by Professor Anna Thomas, September 8, 2019, q.utoronto.ca
Enclosed Plantation/Weak Boundaries: Glissant writes that the Plantation is "[a]n enclosed space [...] defined by boundaries whose crossing was strictly forbidden" (Glissant 64) yet, the Plantation is also a paradox because "forms of humanity stubbornly persist[]" (65). In short, it is a space that considers itself closed, while simultaneously opening itself to a wide array of expressions and ideas i.e. culture, language.
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