Although Frederick Douglass's "Heroic Slave" is somewhat unique when looked at beside his other works, alone it acts a good argument for the validity of Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s assertions in his essay, "American Letters, American Voices".
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 traveler through the State of Virginia drew up his horse to drink at a sparkling brook, near the edge of a dark pine forest". With this Douglass introduces Mr. Listwell, a white man who will guide the reader through much of the story. In presenting the location and the atmosphere of an ordinary Sabbath day, Douglass takes an extra step in making a white reader feel comfortable with the story. However, this is a politically volatile story, dealing with and defending a slave revolt on a slave trade ship. Douglass needs to somehow cause his audience to empathize with the slave's situation. Douglass does this by having the first officer of the very ship that the revolt takes place upon relate the "facts" of the revolt.
