|
|
Article: Witness and participant: Frederick Douglass's child.(William Lloyd Garrison, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
- Article from:
- Studies in American Fiction
- Article date:
- September 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Northeastern University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
When William Lloyd Garrison asks readers of Douglass's Narrative--"Reader, are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and purpose, or on the side of their down trodden victims?--he is invoking sentiment's most traditional device to elicit sympathy--that of direct address. (1) And when he introduces Frederick Douglass's Narrative, in particular, by telling the reader that "He who can peruse it without a tearful eye, a heaving breast, an afflicted spirit ... must have a flinty heart," Garrison is preparing us to encounter the Narrative as any sentimental reader would--indeed much as readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin were meant to encounter little Eva's death, after being educated ...