Final answer:
Harriet Jacobs felt incompetent to write her story in 'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl' because of a lack of education and fear of consequences for sharing her personal experiences as an enslaved person.
Step-by-step explanation:
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs felt incompetent to write her story primarily due to a lack of education. Enslaved individuals were systemically denied education to maintain control over them, as seen in historical examples like Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, both of whom faced significant challenges in their pursuits to read and write. Additionally, writing a narrative as an enslaved person could lead to severe consequences and was a defiance against the societal norms of that time, which could add to the feeling of incompetence due to the possible dangers involved in sharing one's personal experiences.