In 1861, Harriet Jacobs published her book “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”. The story takes place in the southern United States of America, before Jacob escaped from slavery in 1835 (Reilly 649). Jacobs uses the name Linda Brent as a pseudonym (Reilly 649) and describes her experience as an enslaved woman through first-person narration. The purpose of the selections featured in Kevin Reilly's "Worlds of History" is to show the victimization and emotional pain that enslaved women felt toward their white masters compared to the physical pain that a male slave endured. The first selection “III. The Slave’s New Year,” begins with Harriet Jacobs summarizing what a typical hiring day was like for a slave at the beginning of the year. She uses stories of emotion to describe what women experienced, and stories of physical pain to explain what men experienced. She shows her first example of the struggle of being a slave by explaining how little time a slave has before it is time to be purchased by another master. She then goes on to explain the consequences of refusing ...