Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl · Chapter
Christmas Festivities explained
Linda describes the approach of Christmas while she is hidden in her grandmother's garret.
What happens
Linda describes the approach of Christmas while she is hidden in her grandmother's garret. She makes clothes and toys for her children, Benny and Ellen, but cannot be with them. She observes the Johnkannau celebrations, where slaves dress in costumes and go door-to-door begging for donations. Her grandmother invites the town constable and a free colored man who hunts for fugitive slaves, parading them through the house to prove no one is hiding there. Linda endures the terror of their presence and is relieved when they leave.
Themes in this chapter
Motherhood and Family Separation
Linda's longing to be with her children during Christmas highlights the pain of forced separation, as she secretly makes gifts she cannot give them openly.
Dehumanization and Identity
The free colored man who passes for white and hunts fugitives illustrates the internalized racism and loss of identity among those who betray their own people for white favor.
Characters to notice
- Linda Brent
Spends her first Christmas in the garret, secretly making garments for her children and watching them from a distance.
- Benjamin
Receives new clothes from his mother, but believes they came from Santa Claus, unaware of her presence.
- Ellen
Also receives a Christmas stocking and new clothes, unaware that her mother made them.
- Grandmother
Invites the constable and a free colored man to search the house, using the pretense of Christmas hospitality to allay suspicion.
Key passages
“How I longed to tell him that his mother made those garments, and that many a tear fell on them while she worked!”
Linda yearns to reveal to Benny that she made his clothes, but she cannot because she is in hiding.
Emphasizes the emotional toll of her hidden motherhood.
“Any white man, who could raise money enough to buy a slave, would have considered himself degraded by being a constable; but the office enabled its possessor to exercise authority.”
The constable's job was seen as lowly by wealthy whites, but it gave him power to whip slaves at will.
Highlights the corrupting nature of authority in the slave system.