[B]y 1857 Elizabeth Cady Stanton had denounced the unequal status of the wife in marriage as “nothing more nor less than legalized prostitution.” White women who had been thus prepared to think of themselves as their husbands’ slaves, with no legal right to their own bodies, might be able to see in Harriet Jacobs not an outsider pretending to sisterhood but a metaphor of woman’s plight South and North, black and white, married and single. -William Andrews Excerpted from To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988),

Between You and Me The ear mediates between two disparate sides -- the black writer who confesses and the white reader who listens. The ear intercedes.

I repeatedly urged [Jacobs] to consent to the publication of her narrative; for I felt that it would arouse people to a more earnest work for the disinthralment of millions still remaining in that soul-crushing condition, which was so unendurable to her. But her sensitive spirit shrank from publicity. She said, “You know a woman can whisper her cruel wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can record them for the world to read.” - Amy Post [M]y master … had just left me … with stinging, scorching words; words that scathed ear and brain like fire. (459) My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. (470) Sometimes I woke up and found [my mistress] bending over me. At other times she whispered in my ear, as though it was her husband who was speaking to me, and listened to hear what I would answer. If she startled me on such occasions, she would glide stealthily away; and the next morning she would tell me I had been talking in my sleep, and ask who I was talking to. At last I began to be fearful of my life. (477)

The quest for home … dominates Incidents because Jacobs sought a home in which she could be … secure and free from the prerogative of men to insult her. For a black woman, a slave, and an unmarried mother of two in the first half of the nineteenth century, such a quest constituted as heroic a struggle against overwhelming odds as any male fugitive slave would ever record. -William Andrews

I. Hearing the Types of Language A. Sentimental Language - Feelings (Pseudo-familial; Pseudo-friendly) - Promises (Good Intentions) - Ultimately unreliable B. Juridical Language - 5 Implications of its use C. Dialogue - stratifies linguistic communities II. Hearing as Metaphor A. Symbolics of the Ear - Eroticism (Pornography) “Incidents” as pornographic snapshots - Reconstructs white female virtue as voyeuristic - Reconstructs black slave woman as reliable witness and exhorts the reader to be a good witness to crimes committed against slave women III. Domesticity Reconsidered A. Home as Prison B. Home as Refuge IV. Love in the time of Slavery A. Dr. Flint & Linda Brent?