Slavery, Surveillance and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature PDF
Preview Slavery, Surveillance and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature
Slavery, Surveillance, and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature OXFORD STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY Slavery,Surveillance,andGenrein TransamericanSentimentalismand AntebellumUnitedStatesLiterature Nineteenth-CenturyUSLiterary KellyRoss History WritingPainintheNineteenth-Century MariaA.Windell UnitedStates SpeculativeFictions ThomasConstantinesco ExplainingtheEconomyintheEarly LiteraryNeurophysiology UnitedStates Memory,Race,Sex,andRepresentation ElizabethHewitt inU.S.Writing,1860–1914 ModernSentimentalism RandallKnoper Affect,Irony,andFemaleAuthorshipin PicturesqueLiteratureandthe InterwarAmerica TransformationoftheAmerican LisaMendelman Landscape,1835–1874 GenreandWhiteSupremacyinthe JohnEvelev PostemancipationUnitedStates TimeandAntiquityinAmerican TravisM.Foster Empire AnxietiesofExperience RomaRedux JeffreyLawrence MarkStorey FormsofDictatorship TheLatinoContinuumandthe JenniferHarfordVargas Nineteenth-CenturyAmericas TransoceanicAmerica Literature,Translation,and MichelleBurnham Historiography NotQuiteHopeandOtherPolitical CarmenLamas EmotionsintheGildedAge Violentologies NathanWolff Violence,Identity,andIdeologyin History,Abolition,andtheEver-Present Latina/oLiterature NowinAntebellumAmericanWriting B.V.Olguin JeffreyInsko TransgressionandRedemptionin TheCenteroftheWorld AmericanFiction JuneHoward ThomasJ.Ferraro RealistPoeticsinAmericanCulture, TheArchiveofFear 1866–1900 WhiteCrisisandBlackFreedomin ElizabethRenker Douglass,Stowe,andDuBois TheCivilWarDeadandAmerican ChristinaZwarg Modernity JewishAmericanWritingandWorld IanFinseth Literature ThePuritanCosmopolis MaybetoMillions,MaybetoNobody NanGoodman SaulNoamZaritt WhiteWriters,RaceMatters PatriotismbyProxy GregoryS.Jay TheCivilWarDraftandtheCultural FormationofCitizen-Soldiers, 1863–1865 ColleenGlenneyBoggs Slavery, Surveillance, and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature KELLY ROSS GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©KellyRoss2022 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2022937552 ISBN978–0–19–285627–2 DOI:10.1093/oso/9780192856272.001.0001 Printedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. Formymomanddad,JeanRossandKenRoss Contents Credits vii Introduction 1 RacializedSurveillanceandSousveillanceintheAntebellum UnitedStates 6 AntebellumGenresofSurveillance 13 1. FugitiveSlaveNarrativesasaLiteratureofSousveillance 19 Beforethe“SlaveasEyewitness”Trope:TheEx-Slave NarratorasSpy 24 RacializedSurveillanceandSousveillanceinSlaveNarratives ofthe1820sand1830s 33 ComplicatingtheDialecticofRacializedSurveillanceand Sousveillance 46 2. InconspicuousandConspicuousDetectioninBall andPoe 49 “OntheTrailoftheMurderer”:CharlesBallSolvesaCrime 53 Poe’sExperimentswithDetectioninTheNarrativeofArthur GordonPym 56 PerfectingConspicuousDetectionintheDupinTales 69 3. WhiteOversightinTheConfessionsofNatTurner, BenitoCereno,andTheHeroicSlave 76 TheDestructionofWhiteOversightinTheConfessions ofNatTurner 80 BlackSurveillanceinBenitoCereno 85 WhiteUndersightinTheHeroicSlave 92 4. SpeculationFiction:IncidentsintheLifeofaSlaveGirl andTheBondwoman’sNarrative 102 HypercommodificationinIncidentsintheLifeofaSlaveGirl 107 ProtectiveSpeculationinTheBondwoman’sNarrative 111 Coda 127 Acknowledgments 131 Notes 133 WorksCited 165 Index 183 Credits PortionsofChapter1andtheCodaoriginallyappearedinPMLA 135,no.2 (March2020),publishedbytheModernLanguageAssociationofAmerica. Introduction IntheFebruary1837issueofTheSlave’sFriend,theeditorsreportedthatthe magazine’s original frontispiece, “a good man teaching a school, was nearly wornout”andhadbeenreplaced.Inthenewfrontispiece(seeFigureI.1),the editorsexplained,“Youseethreelittleabolitionistsaresittingdown,whileone ofthemisreadingtotheothers.OnonesideisacolumnwiththefigureofJus- ticeonit,andontheothercolumnisthefigureofLiberty.YoucanknowJustice bythescales,andLibertybythecap.”1PublishedbytheAmericanAnti-Slavery Society from 1836 to 1839, The Slave’s Friend was an abolitionist periodical aimedatchildren.2 Despitetheperiodical’sdidactictone,theeditorsneglect tomentionperhapsthemoststrikingfeatureofthenewfrontispiece:theeye floatingabovetheentirescene.ThisimageoftheEyeofProvidenceisafamil- iar one, appearing on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, on modernone-dollarbills,andinthesinisterlogooftheUSInformationAware- nessOffice.3IntheSlave’sFriendfrontispiece,God’sall-seeingeyepresumably watches over the young abolitionists, observing their good behavior, yet the artist has rendered the eye looking directly at the reader, not down at the children below. This icon of divine surveillance thus disciplines the reader, remindinghimorherthatnosecretisconcealedfromGod’seye.4 WhereasGod’seyewatchesfromaboveinTheSlave’sFriend’sfrontispiece, the November 1823 issue of another early antislavery periodical, Genius of Universal Emancipation, includes an image of “sousveillance”—a concept developedbySteveManntodescribewatchingfrombelow.5 Thelowertwo- thirdsofthiswood-blockprintdepictsaslavecofflebeingmarchedpastthe USCapitolbuilding,whichoccupiesthetopthirdoftheframe(seeFigureI.2). Becausetheartisthascompressedtheforegroundandbackground,itappears thattheenslavedpeopleareliterallyunderground.Thisimagejuxtaposestwo looks: the supervisory gaze of a man in a black hat, whom the accompany- ing text identifies as a “member[] of Congress,” and the resistant look of the enslaved man lifting his eyes and his manacled hands toward the Congres- sionaloverseer.6 AsTeresaGoddupointsout,“thestandingslave,despitethe coarsenessoftheimage,hasanidentifiableeye…[that]look[s]uptowardthe promise of freedom on the horizon.”7 By commanding the Congressman to “Behold,behold,thiscruelchain”(thecaptionabovetheimage),theenslaved mandirectsthewhiteoverseer’sgazetofocusonhisfetters.Drawingattention Slavery,Surveillance,andGenreinAntebellumUnitedStatesLiterature.KellyRoss,OxfordUniversityPress. ©KellyRoss(2022).DOI:10.1093/oso/9780192856272.003.0001
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