Chapter 6, The Jealous Mistress Summary and Analysis

Mrs. Flint, suspicious of the attention her husband is bestowing upon Linda, becomes jealous and angry. She has reason to be suspicious, because Dr. Flint was forcing himself upon young slave girls for quite some time (Linda tells us that he is the father of at least eleven slave children). Linda confesses to her mistress that Dr. Flint had made advances to her, and that she had resisted them. Mrs. Flint is devastated, and she does offer Linda some protection from a plan that Dr. Flint had arranged that would force her into a compromising sleeping arrangement. However, the reader is never given the impression that Mrs. Flint ever considers Linda's feelings or that it ever occurs to her to regard Linda as a victim.

The author elaborates further on the dysfunctional dynamic of slave-owning...