The Sentimental Novel

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online describes the Sentimental Novel, or the Novel of Sensibility,

"...any novel that exploits the reader's capacity for tenderness, compassion, or sympathy to a disproportionate degree by presenting a beclouded or unrealistic view of its subject. In a restricted sense the term refers to a widespread European novelistic development of the 18th century, which arose partly in reaction to the austerity and rationalism of the Neoclassical period. The sentimental novel exalted feeling above reason and raised the analysis of emotion to a fine art..."

"The assumptions underlying the sentimental novel were Jean-Jacques Rousseau's doctrine of the natural goodness of man and his belief that moral development was fostered by experiencing powerful sympathies. In England, Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela (1740) was recommended by clergymen as a means of educating the heart. In the 1760s the sentimental novel developed into the 'novel of sensibility,' which presented characters possessing a pronounced susceptibility to delicate sensation. Such characters were not only deeply moved by sympathy for their fellow man but also reacted emotionally to the beauty inherent in natural settings and works of art and music. The prototype was Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67), which devotes several pages to describing Uncle Toby's horror of killing a fly. The literature of Romanticism adopted many elements of the novel of sensibility, including responsiveness to nature and belief in the wisdom of the heart and in the power of sympathy. It did not, however, assimilate the novel of sensibility's characteristic optimism" (www.britannica.com).

Jane Eyre, the novel by British writer Charlotte Bronte is, in some ways a prototypical sentimentalist work. Identified as an item of the Bildungsroman category, the novel traces the coming of age of its protagonist, and her developing affection for the dark and brooding Rochester. Though the novel features a love story, "the focus is on the gradual unfolding of Jane's moral and spiritual sensibility and all the events are coloured [sic] by heightened intensity that was previously the domain of poetry..." (1).

Jane Eyre is credited with being the novel that revolutionized the genre, but perhaps just as importantly, created an entree for women writers focused on social critique, and on exposing the inconsistency and disparity between the genders, and is thus considered a "proto-feminist" novel. This novel becomes relevant as we explore the writing of Harriet Jacobs, who, in many ways structured her own Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl after Bronte's novel. Jacob's narrative, too re-presents the Bildungsroman model, but of a woman who came of age in slavery. The romance with Rochester is recast as Harriet's unwanted attention from a cruel and sexually perverse master, and Jane's relationship to the violent and disturbed Bertha Mason is mirrored in Linda Brent's relationship to her last mistress, Mrs. Flint, a woman who proves nearly as heartless and cruel as her husband.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl also includes many of the tropes and themes that Bronte's included, such as religious piety, sin and redemption, morality (both sexual and temporal), and God and religion. Many of these themes are articulated through characters in the Narrative.

Finally, as Bronte's novel ends "with marriage," Linda Brent's narrative ends conspicuously with a far greater reward for its protagonist: freedom. As we read from Incidents, keep these themes in mind, and as you encounter characters who embody these themes, think about how they enact them or remind the reader of their importance in the larger narrative.