Bonus Blog #1

After reading chapter ten of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", I thought the author used language for two main reasons. The first reason is to get the reader to feel sorry not only for her but for all women in slavery. She went into great detail to explain that she only did what she did because of what Dr. Flint did to her. "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 severly!"(777) Another example would be when she writes "It pains me to tell you of it; but I have promised to tell you the truth and I will do it honestly, let it cost me what it may."(776-77) Here she not only wants the reader to feel sorry, but also is very mature in admitting that what she did was wrong and she is ashamed of it. "I knew what I did, and I did it with deliberate calculation."(777) I think another thing she is trying to say is that revenge isn't always as sweet as it seems. "I would do any thing, every thing, for the sake of degeating him."(776) However, after telling Dr. Flint, her language and tone changes dramatically. "I thought I should be happy in my triumph over him. But now the truth was out, and my relatives would hear of it, I felt wretched."(778). She also mentions at the end of that paragraph that she felt humiliated. I would say that she was probably able to get her audience to sympathize with her because of what she did. She did something that in those times was very radical, and maybe her audience saw this and realized her master really was a horrible person and treated her with no respect.