Harriet Jacobs’s and Jessica Benjamin’s Insights Into “Witnessing”

Abstract: Despite the differences in terminology and literary form, both Harriet Jacobs and Jessica Benjamin explore “witnessing.” In 1861, Jacobs (1987) crafted Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself to acknowledge the suffering of the other and expose, that is, bear “witness” to the condition of enslaved women in the United States. Likewise, Benjamin (2014) provides a theoretical and clinical understanding of the importance of “witnessing” when we confront actions that violate our expectations of how humans should treat each other. This paper applies Benjamin’s ideas on “witnessing” and “the moral third,” enabling a profound appreciation of Jacobs’s powerful narrative and its relevance to otherness.