As I read the selected passages from Hager’s Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing, I found myself thinking about about the purpose of writing and Audience more deeply. In his own words the narratives that are centered in this text “turn our attention to the manuscript writings of marginally literate African Americans who were enslaved, not because such texts are less mediated or somehow more authentic than published works but because their authors had different, hitherto unaccounted experiences of both emancipation and the act of writing.”(23-24). It lead me to consider what exactly marked these accounts as ignorable, less digestible, and different than the popular narratives in the past .
The two writers that are encountered in chapter 3 are Adam Plummer and John Gordon. Both men are involved in the exploritive process of narrative writing and inscription. They both center romantic love in a way that depicts how the dictates of antebellum society and later the dynamic shift of these rules with emancipation, inscibe themselves in their writing and motivation to write.This is done through processes of writing and rewriting accounts of the past that reveal something about the experience of living through the transition to emancipation.
In the Case of Adam Plummer he revolves his short and crude narratives around the love and separation between him and his wife. Of the 4 events that Hager informs us create the account that is supposed to be an autobiography , 3 events involve Emily.”Four events make up Plummer’s brief life- narrative: his birth in 1819, his marriage to Emily in 1841, his separation from her in 1855, and his receipt of her first letter.”(pg 83) In this way Adam exposes the dictates of antebellum society that are inscribed on his life and uses his own method of inscription and writing as a way to asert his humanity and make sense of the inscription that has been placed upon him. Enslavement has broken his family apart and left written word as his only way of upkeeping his marriage. After the dynamic shift with emancipation the autobiography is discontinued. something that Hager suggests might be due to a possible reunion with his wife. This calls in to question the purpose and motivation for beginning the narrative at all. It is at this point that Hager question whether a slave can even write a narrative while enslaved.(82) In the case of Adam plummer his attempt at narrative is never finished and his authority over his self identity and family does not seem fully realized. Although it is a reconstruction through memory it is still happening and not fully refelective. In this way there is a difference from popular slave narratives. However whats most striking about the unfinished account is how it captures the suffering and mundane experience of enslaved life without the distance that most narratives carry. Plummer is not writing his narrative for an audience woth a white sponsor to filther the crude writing and polish the experiences through and in this way Plummers narrative might be the truer narrative of life, un-polished, honest and crude. Although it cannot be confirmed why he decided to write the narrative it is clear that it was not something he wrote with the thought it would ever be read.
John Gordon’s account provokes simular questions however in his case, Gordon mives beyond his crude diary and begins to recreate a narrative with an audience in mind. The contrast between his crude diary in slavery and the more final version he makes after freedom seems to reflect the change in dynamic from pre- to post emancipation. His crude diary barely mentions Slavery and does not seem to make any statement on his condition. It captured his mundane life and quest for love without highlighting the major factor of his enslavement. It is only in the recreation process that Washington changes parts of his history to better use romance as an allegory for his quest to freedom and speaks about freedom in any way. This signifys a shift in motivation or intended audience. Although the account was not published it is clear that the diarys purpose was different than the narrative version by looking at the way he decided to write and inscribe them. The narrative version is even written with more care to form and better paper.
Wondering about audience and purpose also lead me to considering the way epistolary is used in the acquisition of literacy. aletter writing is a major part of the want to write for both writers It begins with a literal want to communicate to others and then turns into a communication and negotiation with the self.

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