Douglass’s Voice and Gates’s Thoughts

The main thesis of Gates’s essay deals with the idea that a book or story can talk to its reader. Different books will talk in different voices, and books that have fallen into the African American genre speak “a distinctively African voice”. This “voice” will do many things, not the least of which is “demonstrate that people of African descent possessed the requisite degrees of reason and whit to create literature, that they were, indeed, full and equal members of the community of rational, sentient beings”. Douglass, in the “Heroic Slave”, displays keen logic and planning throughout the story. He knows his target audience, and he knows the care that is necessary in presenting such a topic in a way that will gain acceptance. Given the white audience, Douglass craftily presents the majority his story from the perspective of a white abolitionist. “On a Sabbath morning, within hearing of the solemn peals of the church bells at a distant village a Northern trav

Gates writes of the fact that a book should “speak”. The voice that the book speaks with, or for, can define the genre that the book can fall into. Although Gates’s article does not mention “Heroic Slave”, it is clear that this is the type of work that fulfills Gates’s assertions. The “black voice” that Gates brings up in several different ways seems to speak loud and clear from the pages of Douglass’s work.

In this case, Douglass’s “Heroic Slave” was the “black voice”. Following the revolt on the Creole their was no “black voice” to speak out and tell of the hardships and the courage of protagonists involved. Because of this the situation was reduced to a squabble between America and Britain, which effectively removed the notable roles from the forefront. Douglass’s reinterpretation of the events spoke out for Madison Washington and the other, unnamed, “freedom fighters”. Douglass was the voice for these men. In this case, “Heroic Slave” was the “black voice”.

Gates makes an interesting point that “18th century slave narrators revised the trope of the talking book” and “subsequent writers in the black tradition have repeated and revised figures, tropes and themes in one another’s work”. It is easy to see this “chain” of repeats and revisions to Douglass’s works in such authors as Chestnutt, Washington, Ellison, and Wright. One of the most profound revisions, which is a testimony of the affects of time, is that of the actual plight of African Americans in regards to racism. In “Heroic Slave” racism is a direct byproduct of slavery. To be a slave, by definition, is to be less then your master. Even to an African American, as a result of circumstance, this was seen as true. Testimony to this can be seen when Washington Madison states, “If I am caught, I shall only be a slave”. Slaves were seen as property and possessions. However, the theme of Racism and the Trope of Blacks change

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