Peephole

In Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author recounts her life as a slave, and the painful, long journey she took to lead herself and her children to freedom. Harriet narrowly escapes Dr. Flint, and if forced to live in hiding in her grandmother's house until the right opportunity for her escape comes about. She lives for nearly seven years in a crawlspace above the house, which she cannot leave for fear of exposure. This is a painful and tedious time in her life and she cannot acknowledge her presence to her young children, who long for her and live under the same roof. To spare her sanity, Linda manages to make a small peephole in the wall of her hiding place, which she uses to watch her children and overhear any news or gossip that goes on outside the home.
The peephole that Linda created was the one small window into the real world that she had for seven years, and the small inch or two that she could look upon her children through. Although she was not under Dr. Flint's rule, she was still not free, and chose to live in a dirty, cramped space without the companionship of her children and friends instead of living as a slave. Linda chose these drastic conditions over living in bondage, and this choice reveals the harshness and hellishness of slavery and the measures many people took to escape it. Her peephole motivated her to eventually achieve freedom for herself and her family, and it kept her alive through the long dark years she spent secretly stowed away.

Ashley Smith
hazelnutwhitemocha@yahoo.com