This week was short, but we covered a couple incredible rhetors who deserve a whole lot more intellectual attention then I am really equipped to give them. Nevertheless, I think its interesting that, at least in the last couple weeks, with our focus seemingly expanding to include rhetoric in practice, as opposed to just rhetoric in theory (not that the two are necessarily separable), that we are engaging with the work of a public rhetor, Sojourner Truth, and the authorial work of Fredrick Douglass in tandem. They were both responding to similar cultural contexts and issues, albeit one focusing on the rights of women and the other on the emancipation of black men, but they interestingly took very different approaches (in this case). Douglass was both a public and literary rhetor, giving speeches (like his famous independence day speech) and creating non-fiction narratives, but I do find the rhetorical nature of his written work especially fascinating for a number of reasons. Looking to Sojourner Truth, I think the multiple translation are as fascinating as they are troubling, and I think her ethos as a public figure is intriguing as well.
Douglass: "This Everlasting Thinking" (40)
Douglass, I think, is a great figure to consider when thinking about the possible rhetorical power of narrative. I haven't researched it, but there must be a lot of scholarship about how Douglass's choice to publish his story could have, and likely was, at least partially, grounded in a hope to further push the abolitionist movement forward. Regardless of the fact that this narrative is non-fiction, which adds to the harrowing affect of it, amongst the many other slave narratives with similar qualities, the stylistic and structural (plot structure) choices are deeply rhetorical in nature, and, in this particular case, rather powerfully so. Douglass gives external life, so to speak, through language, to his own life's story, and, in doing so, illustrates the kind of power literacy and rhetoric has given him both in form, embodied by the narrative itself, and content, through the voice of his protagonist.
I found the change in his protagonist's capacity for thought with his literacy to be interesting also. I've been reading up on Wittgenstein a bit, for my final project draft, and I think (I could definitely be wrong) that this kind of relates to the notion of private vs. public language. Douglass' protagonist gains access to the private language of the written word, which isn't a private language in the absolute sense of being entirely isolated to a single individual (which Wittgenstein seems to argue is impossible), but to a particular group within the culture (white-folk in this case), and by gaining access to the structure/grammar of said private language he becomes aware of the conversation: a conversation he can now see is clearly flawed and justifies evil poorly. For example, when Douglass writes "The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights...The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers" (40), the protagonist has become aware of a means by which he can understand and articulate his right to fair and equal treatment, which, furthermore, reinforces his awareness of the ways in which his rights are being actively withheld, rather than passively. It's a rather powerful statement about the power language can have in both oppressing and liberating people's under these kinds of circumstances.
Sojourner Truth: "Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance" (nps.gov)
Sojourner Truth's speech was rhetorically interesting for a number of reasons. The content itself is rather intriguing, if we can try to set style aside to avoid the problems with its transcription, just in that it, in a manner reminiscent of syllogism, seems to use a clearly logical structure, creating logical conclusions based on truthful premises, in a rather effective manner. That said, to return to style, I am curious about how Truth actually delivered the speech. Regardless of whose choice it was, and whether or not Truth supported it, to transcribe her speech in a southern dialect, I do think it was an interesting rhetorical choice to make. I am curious about whether or not giving her a southern dialect could have been to, as Justin suggested, paint slavery as a solely southern problem, when clearly it wasn't. I'd argue, if it was a choice made to make sure the content reached more people than it would have otherwise, then, despite being problematic for a number of reasons, it might have ultimately been for the greater good. Nevertheless, I thought both transcriptions of Truth's speech were pretty rhetorically powerful, which says something about her ability, in my opinion, as a rhetor.
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself.” Documenting the American South, 1999, docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/douglass.html.
Truth, Sojourner. “Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2017, www.nps.gov/articles/sojourner-truth.htm.
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