Religion in the face of adversity; an examination of Harriet Jacobs and Nicholas Higgins

Abstract

Denne oppgaven har som mål å undersøke de religiøse identitene til karakterne Nicholas Higgins og Linda Brent/Harriet Jacobs i henholdsvis Elizabeth Gaskells industriroman North and South og Harriet Jacobs' slavefortelling Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Teksten gransker Higgins' og Jacobs' holdninger til religion som helhet, i tillegg til hvordan de ser på religion med tanke på barna sine og miljøet de lever i, samt at den undersøker hvordan religion eksisterte i de virkelig samfunnene og tidsperiodene som bøkene utleder fra, nærmere bestemt industrielle samfunn i Nord-England i Victoriatiden og slavebundne samfunn i de landlige Sørstatene i USA.

This thesis aims to examine the religious identities of characters Nicholas Higgins and Linda Brent/Harriet Jacobs of Elizabeth Gaskell's industrial novel North and South and Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, respectively. The text looks at Higgins' and Jacobs' attitude towards religion as a whole, as well as how they view religion in relation to their children and to their surroundings, and in this also investigates what religion looked like in the real-world societies and time periods which the books derive from, namely the Victorian era industrial communities in Northern England and enslaved communities in the rural American South.