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Strategies in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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Linda Brent was a young slave who was rebellious and independent until she became a mother. Linda's dream was to escape slavery and flee to the North. After becoming a mother, she still wants freedom, but she also feels close to her children, but they are also under Dr. Flint's possession. As a mother she is unwilling to leave them because she is worried about what is going to happen once she leaves. Most of Linda's actions are directed by this essential emotional and moral conflict. Linda Brent uses three different kinds of literary tools to appeal sentiment; subtle resistance, masking, and flagrant resistance. Subtle resistance is the refusal to accept or comply with something. Linda Brent used tools of subtle resistance such as mumbling, secrecy, shift in point of view, concealment, and whispering. She used a figure of speech in the form of a question in order to stimulate a feeling or emotion. Shift in viewpoint within Linda's story incorporated rhetorical questions and commentary on the side which was viewed in third person. An example of rhetorical questioning in the "Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl," was when she stated, "Why are ye silent, ye free men and women of the North? Why do your tongues falter in maintenance of the rights?" She is saying how can her readers sit while slaves, women and girls, suffer under the Southern slave system. In addition, Linda clearly showed how whispering was a way for the slaves to exchange information. Slaves having direct transmission with each other was limited, whispering was their way of commutation. The slaves would also mumble into the air, that way there is no situation between opposing parties. The mother tongue of silence admitted slaves to suppress information and hide what they had seen and heard. This mother tongue was a way to mislead and confuse the masters. The "tongue" was another word for speech, which is also another word for empower

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