Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage.”
- Date
- 1861
Meaning of “Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in…”
Jacobs deliberately closes her narrative by centering legal freedom for herself and her children instead of the conventional marriage ending expected of many nineteenth-century narratives.
Where does it come from?
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Chapter XLI, “Free At Last,” Project Gutenberg #11030. Jacobs tells the reader that her story ends with freedom rather than marriage, then explains that she and her children are free while her hope for a home of her own remains unrealized. This is autobiographical testimony from the history of U.S. slavery.