The novel's black characters and how to portray them were very much on Cather's mind when she composed Sapphira. (2) What if any connections Cather made between these characters and actual black people living in America at the time she was writing is impossible to know, but the novel itself oscillates between depicting black characters as objects that exist only in relation to white characters and allowing them to be autonomous subjects who act with conscious intent. (3) Orality is central to Sapphira, since the narrative has its origins in "old family and neighborhood stories" (Woodress 481). Cather heard these stories from three main sources: her own family members, Matilda Jefferson, and Mary Ann Anderson.