As we discussed in class on Thursday, Fanny Fern and Harriet Jacobs, by virtue of their genders, were somewhat marginalized writers. While Franny handled her position with humor and sarcasm, Jacobs did so with distance, telling her own story as if it is the plot of the novel.
Though I'm sure there were considerations in publishing the story as such, I found it weakened Jacobs's appeals to empathy at times. Take this passage, from p. 929:
"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 severely. If slavery had been abolished, I, too, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I should have been spared the painful task of confusing what I am now about to relate; but all my prospects have been blighted by slavery."
To a white female reader, the appeal of a fictional character may not be so compelling. An author, telling the story woman-to-woman, however, might yield different results. Though publishing at the cost of Jacobs's most forceful arguments against slavery certainly is indicative of the time, I feel certain that the freedoms allowed to women and appreciated in literature now would make for an even more compelling Life of a Slave Girl.
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