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'Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage' (Harriet Jacobs). How do nineteenth century American women writers define and engage with ideas of freedom in their work?

Both Harriet Jacobs and Emily Dickinson have complicated relationships with freedom; their definitions are more implied than concrete and freedom remains a complex matter throughout the texts. Each writer has a different relationship with freedom because it is a subjective concept and dependent on individual circumstance. Jacobs` definition of freedom is largely one of being physically and spiritually free; her biggest desire is to have the freedom to live where and how she likes and have full control over her own mind and body. Although she might not always be able to comprehend what freedom is in reality, instead maintaining a slightly idealised image of it, she engages with the notions and ideas of what it is not. She uses comparisons to do this, specifically between her and white women. Dickinson, on the other hand, explores the ideas of intellectual freedom and freedom of expression. She explores herself and her relationship to the world, using her imagination to free her mind, while her body remains in a sort of self-imprisonment within her room. Both women use writing to aid their quest for freedom, using existing literary parameters and bending them to the expressive needs of the individual. Jacobs uses prose to comment on freedom, which is familiar to her because it is similar to the oral stories told by slaves. Dickinson, on the other hand, uses poetry, having been heavily influenced by female British writers such as Elizabeth Barret Browning and the Bronte sisters, in order to express herself in a more abstract manner. Each uses chosen a method of expression that allows them to fully communicate the ideas that they wish to. Jacobs had never really experienced freedom and therefore could not define in any concrete terms what it was. She does, however, have an understanding of what freedom is not, based on comparisons made between herself (as a slave) and others (as free men). In her early life she did not realise that she was not free, an important point that features as the first line: `I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away`. The first sentence immediately, and bluntly, introduces the reader to the reality that she is not free. She gives detail of her father`s life, which is much like that of any free man; he supported himself by working at a skilled trade, for which he was well-known. This fleeting and false sense of freedom is sharply juxtaposed with the use of the words, `slave`, `property` and `merchandise` to describe members of Jacob`s family within the first paragraph. Jacob`s very cleverly places the freedom her father and grandmother have in being able to work to support themselves with semi-professional employment in contrast to the fact they, as human beings, are still property. The term `slave` is very definitive in the sense that it becomes a label which is intended to objectify those who are called it. Jacobs says of her mother that she had been `a slave merely in name` and had managed to remain `noble and womanly in her nature` . Early in life, Jacob`s begins to recognise that slaves live by a different set of rules to free men. She says, very matter-of-factly: `we all know that the memory of a faithful slave does not avail much to save her children from the auction block` . This is a key moment in Jacob`s understanding that she, and other slaves, have no control over themselves and their lives. Instead, they are subject to the will of their masters and face the constant fear of being sold and separated from their family. This lack of freedom to control oneself is explored more in Jacob`s sexual exploitation at the hands of her master and her desire to choose her own lover. Jacob`s master is described as `a hateful man, who claimed a right to rule... [her] body and soul` . She had no defence against him and was forced to do as he willed, which her master made her aware of;; he makes tells her that he could even kill her if he wanted to. Again the idea of her as a piece of property, rather than a human, is apparent. She is not allowed the same rights as free people; she is denied the right to marry the man she loves, her mistress being of the opinion that slaves do not have the right to family. She compares herself to white women to juxtapose the differences in her life and her choices with that of a free, white woman. She believes that slave and free women should be judged differently: `If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the man of my choice` . The idea of being able to choose who you love is important in Jacob`s story because it has such a large influence on the course that her life takes. Her lack of choice further imprisons her within the bounds of slavery, in a way that men do not experience, because both her body and the purity of her soul are controlled by an external power. It is this that leads Jacobs to shame and the destruction of her virtue, which was of utmost importance to her and all women of the era. It was preached that they should be chaste and pure, but Jacobs had this choice taken from her. She tried to use her body as a means of gaining freedom and seeking safety with a white man. Her naivety with regards to the reality of freedom is apparent in the assumption that `freedom could easily be obtained` from Mr Sands. While she gained some sense of freedom by choosing to give her body to someone, which she saw as `less degrading` than to have it taken forcefully, she was still the slave of Dr. Flint and gained no actual freedom. She still suffered abuse at his hands, when he comes to visit her and cuts off her hair and beats her. Although she hadn`t returned to his house since having the child he still regards her as his property. Her freedom is limited for her children too; they have no right to a last name and she is not supposed to christen her child because slave children `always follow the condition of the mother`. Jacobs used writing to express herself fully, in a way that she had not been able to before. She didn`t retreat into her imagination as Dickinson did, but sought to express herself by sharing the truth of her own experience. In doing this she was able to seek some sort of release from the imprisonment of the terrible memories and pain of her past. She wrote in the popular sentimental style, which normally featured the story of a woman facing hardship in her life. While these novels typically ended with marriage, Jacob`s story ended with freedom. In a way she subverts the message of the typically sentimental style by implying that marriage is merely another type of imprisonment, and that she sought to be truly free. Sentimental novels relied on an emotional response from the reader so that they could empathise with the main character`s plight; Jacob`s achieved this by directly addressing the readers and by keeping her tone honest throughout. She was sensitive to the readers and left out the explicit detail of her sexual exploitation, while apologising still for the story that she had to tell; she justifies herself to them by saying that she had pledged to tell the truth, thus reinforcing the goodness of her nature. The narrative of her story is very similar to an oral story; this effect is furthered by her addressing the reader, which makes the narrative feel like a conversation is being held. Stories told by word of mouth were frequently employed by slaves who had no methods of writing and needed to preserve their history or even just provide a sort of entertainment in their awful lives. Similarly to Jacobs, Emily Dickinson had an abstract idea of freedom; as a woman she was restricted in the way she interacted with the world and she had very little idea of what it was to be truly free. Her view of the world was largely influenced by her father and the short trips that she took to visit relatives. She saw society and the rules that it dictated as imprisonment and in response sought her own sense of freedom by shutting herself off from it; in the absence of any real freedom in the external world, she sought it inside her own mind. Dickinson`s view of society was that `the public realm would only interfere with a woman`s attempt to establish an identity . Poem 466 deals with this idea of freedom in imagination, away from the judgemental eyes of society; Dickinson believed that the best place to explore the self was in the privacy of one`s own room , which provided her with a place to freely `Dwell in possibility` , in a place that was `Impregnable of eye `. It provided a safe space for her to develop intellectually and express herself in way that she would otherwise not have been able to in her subordinate position as a female. Dickinson rebels against the idea of the latter, which Kathi M. Taliercio describes in a delightful phrase: `[d]welling there, the lady of the manor makes not cakes but poetry` . For Dickinson, her `dwell[ing] in `Possibility ` and poetry is a spiritual kind of freedom. Like Emerson, for whom she had admiration, poetry and freedom from society was a spiritual act which allowed one to connect oneself to nature and transcend the problem of society. This can be seen in the image of the `Gambrels of the Sky` , which suggests that writing poetry is `starting a journey to the spiritual world` .The `Windows` in her poem can be seen as representing the power of observation; in her distance from society she could see it all the better in order to avoid it and shift the power balance in her favour. In her room she was offered more possibilities in her imagination than she would have been in the world; her imagination is `Superior - for Doors `. She didn`t, however, completely shut herself off from society, she just exercised her freedom to choose what and whom she was exposed to; she maintained communication with her friends by letter, and would only have to see those visitors that she saw as the `fairest`. Dickinson was able to use her writing to explore her relationship with the world, which was something she could not discuss with her family, particularly her father. Dickinson and her sister Lavinia had learnt to avoid this topic with him, as he unwaveringly tried to teach them that the world was a bad and dangerous place and would not be convinced to admit otherwise . Dickinson`s father was keen to keep her at home and managed to instil in her a fear of the world, which was likely to have contributed to her shutting herself off from it. She really began to explore her thoughts with poetry when she returned from college, not even a year after she had left, and it could be that she was not sure how to consolidate her own experiences and ideas of the world with those of her father. For Dickinson a large part of freedom could be found in the natural world, which could not be controlled by human influence. Nature does not have to abide by the rules of social convention, whereas the people in Dickinson`s life did. Dickinson appeared to relate more to the wildness of nature than to the female qualities that society demanded. As Josephine Pollitt says of her, her ambitions was `not to be a perfect model of propriety and good behaviour... but to be the belle of Amherst, with crowds of admirers` . Dickinson chose poetry to engage with ideas of freedom because it is a very free form of expression; if one doesn`t choose to do so one doesn`t have to abide by any conventions. It`s much easier to express emotions and abstract ideas, with many calling it the most pure form of expression. Dickinson based her work on very simple structures of poetry, but bent its form to her own will; she used assonance rather than full rhymes or rhyming couplets, which gave her the freedom to choose specifically the words she wished to use. In poem 466 she rhymed `Prose` with `Doors`; although the words don`t fully rhyme the poem still flows and Dickinson is able to convey her message in the way that she wished to. The form of the poem also reflects this idea; she capitalises words that she feels are important and worthy of more attention, such as `Possibility`, in a way that a modern writer might italicise a word or make it bold. The use of dashes in her work is particularly interesting as it does not follow any conventional style, but it suited her needs at the time. Unlike Jacobs, who had to consider her audience when writing, Dickinson was unpublished and wrote for only for herself, except for the occasions when she gave her poems as gifts. This meant that she was not faced with any restrictions in her work, which allowed her to be as free to experiment as she liked. I believe that one can see the use of dashes in two ways. The first is to break up sentences so that each is paid attention to and is read separately to the rest of the poem, while remaining a part of it. It forces the reader to pause and consider what has been said, in relation to that which follows it, but also as its own phrase. Take, for instance, line four; `Superior` stands out and must be considered separately - what is superior, is it the windows, Dickinson herself and the live she has chose, the `Doors` themselves? The second way that they can be considered is as paths, connecting up the individual ideas that are represented in the poem; it takes one from her idea of poetry, houses and intellectual freedom to her choices in other aspects of her life, such as visitors. To conclude, both Jacobs and Dickinson have complicated relationships with freedom, and find it hard to pin down a definition, both suffering from a type of society-induced imprisonment. They both rebel against this idea and use writing to explore their relationship with freedom, which in its own way gives them a sense of freedom and release. The form of their writing helps them to do this as they both choose forms of expression that reflect the messages that they wish to convey. Although both will always remain, to some extent, trapped within the imprisonment of their past and, in Dickson`s case, her physical surrounding, they have both achieved a sort of freedom in their lives.