Jacobs’s writing is enhanced by interesting images and sometimes symbolism. What does the gold chain in the following passage represent in this story? “When we left the church, my father’s old mistress invited me to go home with her. She clasped a gold chain round my baby’s neck. I thanked her for this kindness; but I did not like the emblem. I wanted no chain to be fastened on my daughter, not even if its links were of gold. How earnestly I prayed that she might never feel the weight of slavery’s chain, whose iron entereth into the soul!”

The image of the gold chain in this anecdote from Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of the Slave Girl is a particularly evocative one. Although the mistress means for the gold chain to be a gift and a "kindness," Jacobs sees the chain as representing the yoke of slavery.
In the passage, Jacobs explains clearly why she does not want the chain to adorn her baby's neck:

I wanted no chain to be fastened on my daughter, not even if its links were of gold. How earnestly I prayed that she might never feel the weight of slavery’s chain, whose iron entereth into the soul!

Jacobs explains that any "chain," whether it be decorative or punitive, symbolizes "the weight of slavery's chain" to her. Jacobs sincerely wishes for her children to be free of slavery, free of the pain she herself has endured. She also indicates that slavery is not just a physical state, but also a spiritual one: once an individual is enslaved, the "iron enter[s] into the soul," meaning that slavery changes a person on the inside, as well.
Jacobs's focus on her wish for her children to be free is one of her most important techniques in trying to appeal to her white female audience. She knows that white women may judge her as being in the wrong when masters abuse her sexually, so she must win the readers over by emphasizing what they have in common: Christianity and their children. Here, Jacobs is hoping that all mother can empathize with her plight and, in turn, that free women can understand the brutality of slavery and the damage it does to the family.