Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl · Chapter
XXVIII: Aunt Nancy explained
Linda recounts the life and death of her great-aunt Nancy, a devoted slave in Dr.
What happens
Linda recounts the life and death of her great-aunt Nancy, a devoted slave in Dr. Flint's household whose health was destroyed by years of forced labor and sleep deprivation. Despite her suffering, Nancy remained a source of strength and encouragement for Linda during her years in hiding. After Nancy's death, Mrs. Flint's sentimental request to bury her in the family plot is overruled by Nancy's mother, who chooses the slave graveyard. The chapter contrasts the slaveholders' self-congratulatory grief with the hidden realities of exploitation and Linda's own continued imprisonment.
Themes in this chapter
Sexual Exploitation and Agency
Nancy's forced sleep on the entry floor and repeated premature births illustrate the sexual and reproductive exploitation inherent in slavery.
Motherhood and Family Separation
Nancy's children die in infancy due to her mistreatment, and the chapter highlights the grief of a mother unable to protect her offspring.
Hypocrisy of Religion and Morality
Mrs. Flint's sentimental grief and the minister's involvement in the funeral contrast sharply with the cruelty that caused Nancy's death.
Characters to notice
- Aunt Nancy
Linda's great-aunt and mother's twin sister, whose health was destroyed by forced labor and sleep deprivation, yet who remained a steadfast supporter of Linda's resistance.
- Grandmother
Nancy's mother, who despite years of cruel treatment, is granted permission to watch at her daughter's deathbed and insists on burying her in the slave graveyard.
- Dr. Flint
Nancy's master, who shows momentary softness at her death but later tries to manipulate Linda's grandmother into convincing Linda to return.
- Mrs. Flint
Nancy's mistress, who forced Nancy to sleep on the entry floor for years, causing multiple premature births, and later sentimentally wishes to bury Nancy in the family plot.
- Linda Brent
Narrator who mourns Nancy's death from her hiding place, feeling that her own troubles contributed to Nancy's decline.
- Phil
Nancy's brother, who pays for her funeral expenses and comforts Linda after she faints upon hearing of Nancy's death.
Key passages
“She had always slept on the floor in the entry, near Mrs. Flint’s chamber door, that she might be within call. When she was married, she was told she might have the use of a small room in an outhouse. Her mother and her husband furnished it. He was a seafaring man, and was allowed to sleep there when he was at home. But on the wedding evening, the bride was ordered to her old post on the entry floor.”
Even on her wedding night, Nancy was forced to return to her usual sleeping spot on the floor outside Mrs. Flint's door, denied the privacy of the small room she had been promised.
Illustrates the complete lack of autonomy enslaved people had over their own bodies and family life.
“I wish it could have lived, she said; it is not the will of God that any of my children should live. But I will try to be fit to meet their little spirits in heaven.”
Holding her dead baby, Nancy resignedly accepted her losses and hoped to be worthy of reuniting with her children in the afterlife.
Shows the emotional toll of infant mortality on enslaved mothers and the use of religious faith as a coping mechanism.
“Mrs. Flint had rendered her poor foster-sister childless, apparently without any compunction; and with cruel selfishness had ruined her health by years of incessant, unrequited toil, and broken rest. But now she became very sentimental.”
After systematically destroying Nancy's health and robbing her of children, Mrs. Flint suddenly became maudlin and wanted to bury Nancy in the family plot as a show of attachment.
Highlights the hypocrisy of slaveholders who sentimentalized their relationships with enslaved people while ignoring the harm they caused.
