This article, “To be Raped, Bred, or Abused”, is a newspaper article for the New York Times written in 1987 by Henry Louis Gates Jr. It was written to discuss the hard process of validating the credibility of Incidents and life of a slave girl, written by Harriet Jacobs. It goes on to discuss the main points of the narrative and the implications behind them. It talks about the decision Harriet was forced to make between being raped by her master and becoming the lover of another white man and bearing his children. This article contributes to literature by explaining the importance of Harriet’s story being validated and shared with everyone. He wants everyone to know how important her specific story is to the history of black women. Not only…show more content… Not only did he teach about the history that the story is part of but, he also contributed to the literary world. He wrote “figures in black” and edited “the slave’s narrative”. He knows how the editing process works, so he knows the extensive work that has to be done in order for this to happen. The fact that the first editor was criticized for her work and the second and what appears to be the final editor had to fight her way through the entire editing process makes the journey of the story that much more important. The author points out that it isn’t right that the novel and author were questioned to the point that the novel had no credibility and was lost. Luckily, it was rediscovered, and the author feels that this makes its contribution to the history of the black women’s literary tradition that much more meaningful. He wants to get across to the audience how important it was that people fought to make this happen. He also wants them to realize the effect her story has on the history. He is making this argument of importance based on the message Harriet wanted to get across. Harriet was targeting women of every color with her story to say that they have a choice in how their lives will go and that even if the choices aren’t good choices, at least they can make the decision for themselves. She wanted women to start standing up for themselves and break away from the way men say things are supposed to go. She also refused to let people say her story was false without fighting for it. She demanded to be heard and given credibility for her work. (Gates, 1987) Another reason she was speaking to women was because she felt that her story could connect to the women up north and make them realize just how cruel slavery was. She wanted to get them on her side in order to increase the number of people fighting to end slavery. “But I do earnestly desire to
