Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Along with William, Linda moves to the house of Dr. Flint, Emily Flint’s father. Both children are resistant to their lot as slaves, partly because their father has always instilled in them the “feelings of a freeman,” for example saying that it’s a person’s father, not his mistress, who has the “strongest claim upon his obedience.” Grandmother tries to cheer up the children, but they are demoralized by the cold and unkind treatment they receive in the Flint house.

A year later, Grandmother delivers the sad news that Linda’s father has died. Grandmother tries to comfort her by saying that God has saved her parents from “evil days to come,” but Linda’s “heart rebelled against God” for taking her relatives. Mrs. Flint refuses to let Linda go to see her father’s body, and instead makes her spend the day arranging flowers for a party. The Flints feel that Linda’s father has spoiled her by teaching her to feel like a “human being.” Linda sees her father buried the next day.

Linda and William are both more depressed than ever; when she tries to comfort her brother by saying they might earn money to buy themselves, he says he doesn’t want to pay money for his own freedom. Meanwhile, they barely get anything to eat because Mrs. Flint is so stingy with food for her slaves. Linda relies on Grandmother to provide her with good meals and clothes.

To add insult to injury, when Grandmother’s mistress dies, Dr. Flint, her executor, refuses to repay Grandmother the loan she once gave his mother-in-law. He also refuses to honor a provision in the woman’s will freeing Grandmother, and instead decides to sell her. He wants to do this privately, because Grandmother is well-known in the community and people will object to the sale of an old woman; however, Grandmother ascends to the auction block so her case is known to the public. Everyone is shocked, and an elderly friend of Grandmother’s dead mistress, Miss Fanny, buys her and sets her free.

“Like many southern women,” Mrs. Flint is too lazy to run her own household but very energetic when it comes to whipping her slaves. Although she attends church every Sunday, after she comes home and eats dinner she spits in the leftovers so that the slaves won’t eat them. Meanwhile, Dr. Flint whips or humiliates the cook every time he doesn’t like a meal: once, after the dog becomes sick, he makes her eat dog food, and many times he separates her from her nursing infant for an entire day.

Linda once sees Dr. Flint tie up and whip a slave from his plantation who offended him by accusing him of being the father of his wife’s child; later, he sells husband and wife to a slave trader. Linda recalls another case in which a slave from a neighboring household is dying while giving birth to her master’s illegitimate child; her mistress stands over her and jeers like “an incarnate fiend,” telling her she deserves to die.

The slave’s mother comforts her, saying she and the baby will soon be in Heaven, but the mistress says that “there is no such place for…her and her bastard.” The dying woman tells her mother not to react to these taunts, saying that God will take pity on her.