The Heroic Slave

Compare and contrast Madison’s rhetoric with the rhetoric used during the American Revolution. Cite specific examples.

How does Douglass use parentheses in the story? What function and/or aesthetic do they serve? Provide textual evidence to support your response.

What is the effect of Douglass using play-like dialogue tags in Part 3? How does this structure connect to the famous abolitionist plays of the 19th century such as The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858) by William Wells Brown or The Octoroon (1859) by Dion Boucicault?

Compare and contrast Douglass’s fictionalization of the Creole enslaved people’s revolt with other documents about the case, such as Kat Eschner’s article “When Enslaved People Commandeered a Ship and Hightailed it to Freedom in the Bahamas” from The Smithsonian or the nonfiction text The Creole Revolution by Bruce Chadwick. How are they similar, and what creative license does Douglass take in his fictional narrative?

Douglass was enslaved before he became a prominent abolitionist, author, and leader in the Black civil rights movement. Select three passages from “The Heroic Slave,” analyzing how Douglass’s lived experiences distinctly influence the characters’ dialogue, viewpoints, or actions.

Douglas presents two different models of white allyship in the characters of Tom Grant and Mr. Listwell. Analyze the distinct significance that each character offers to the abolitionist project. How would the narrative change if Douglass only included one character or if Tom did not alter his beliefs about enslavement?

Examine Douglass’s depiction of gender in “The Heroic Slave.” How do the characters adhere to or subvert 19th-century societal expectations of gender? How does the intersection of race and gender influence the characters?

Analyze the significance of Douglass’s use of Christian rhetoric and allusions, which many abolitionist authors use in their works. What function do they serve in the narrative? What impact would removing these allusions have on the story’s impact or broader ideological aims?