Douglass creates a story that has all the makings of a good epic story: a hero who is noble, educated, and seemingly perfect; a helper along the way to give him what he needs to succeed at all points in his journey; even a tragic love story that brings our hero into the heart of his problem. What Douglass has done is give us a noble representation of a slave to convince us of his purpose and to call us to come along. He appeals to our common love for liberty - a love that might just be at the core of the American dream, just as much for us now as to the abolitionists to whom this story was directed. Douglass justifies the use of force in this search for liberty... "we have done that which you applaud your fathers for doing, and if we are murderers, so were they!" (p.49) Aren't we struck by the similarities in their search for freedom? Shouldn't we applaud their principles... ones on which this Nation was built? The thing that holds us back is that white men "do not recognize [these principles'] application to one whom [they] deem inferior."
The fact that this story is unbelievable is beside the point. Where I find this story so much easier to support in contrast to Pym is in the presence of plot. We know what Douglass is trying to tell us, and he connects it well with good writing skills. We are involved in the story and the character, and the unbelievable elements of his path to freedom are necessary and support this folklore. Don't we always glorify the past? What makes us think we need to have a factually accurate account of everything? An epic reminds us of what we dream for - and what we are left with is a story that, at its core, is true, though not necessarily factual or literally believable. Take this story for what it is, and you will see that Douglass was trying to inspire, and I think he did a good job.
(emma refvem)
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I agree with what Emma has written in this entry, but I would like to elaborate on her statement about the story being effective regardless of validity. To elaborate, I'll make a comparison to A Million Little Pieces ,by James Frey, a book about the Frey's personal experience with drug rehabilitation. This book was labeled as a memoir, but, as Oprah later exploited, some parts of the memoir were complete fabrications by Frey. However, I was still very moved by the strength and accomplishment that Frey brought through in the message from this book-i read this 430 page book in one day because I simply could not put it down. I equate this to "The Heroic Slave" because the message Douglass wanted to put out is still strong and apparent. He made up the coincidences and the dialogue, yes, but the basis of the story is true, it is not 100% fiction. Thus, he added details that were not true to create an interesting and memorable story. Imagining the story as complete non-fiction makes me think that it would still be remarkable, but would lack the hook that many readers need to get something out of literature.
ReplyDeleteBasically, I believe that honesty is good in the "real world," but in the world of impressive literature, making a story interesting is more important than it being completely truthful. I enjoyed reading this novella and was not bothered at all by the parts Douglass added to it.
I really appreciate this middle of the road approach to this work. I feel like the debate got really heated over something that really has two sides to it (but i suppose that's the nature of the debate). I feel like with all literature you have to take it with a grain of salt. One could get completely worked up over the believability of a piece of work but that would be at the expense of the experience of reading fiction.
ReplyDeleteI mean, no one gets this worked up over the realism of Harry Potter!
...and i don't mean to compare Fredrick Douglas' work to Harry Potter-- except as works of fiction. This is an excellent piece of historical fiction that raised money for a good cause (and hopefully inspired others to an even bigger cause).