Jency Williams
Prof. Richards
Southern Lit
13 September 2010
Summary/Critique: Stepto
Robert B. Stepto argues in his article, Narration, Authentication, and Authorial
Control in Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of 1845, that Douglass’ slave narrative is
ultimately successful because of his refined application of voice, which expresses
intellectual emancipation. Stepto claims that “the strident, moral voice of the former
slave…is the single most impressive feature of a slave narrative” (146) since it indicates
the author’s level of literacy. According to Stepto, the narrative voice is the slave’s “only
permanent achievement” (146) in society. However, he notes that slave narratives are
often “full of other voices” (146) that can advance or deter the narrative. These
additional voices are people mentioned within the text or supplementary writings from
slaveholders and abolitionists that authenticate the narrative. Stepto then reduces the
slave narrative to three different phases of ascending sophistication. He calls the first
phase the “basic” (147) or “eclectic narrative” (147), which simply refers back to the
practice of white abolitionists and slaveholders defending the relevancy of a slave
narrative. The second phase, very similar to the first, involves an integration of voices in
the narrative. Stepto believes this narrative produces a comparatively elevated text since
the slave “carries much of the weight of introducing and authenticating his tale” (147),
rather than relying solely on white writers’ input. For Stepto, the emphasis becomes “less
a collection of texts and more a unified narrative” (147) – he aims for a work that does
not just possess “historical and sociological data” (148), but also distinguishing “literary
features” (148). Stepto splits the final phase into two parts. First, he defines the
“generic narrative” (147), which is simply “a narrative of discernible genre” (147), and
then second, the “authenticating narrative” (148), which is a narrative that “becomes an
authenticating document for other, usually generic texts” (149). Structurally, Stepto
considers Douglass’ narrative “primitive” (149) due to the “segregated narrative texts”
(149), however because of its “dynamic energy” (149) between the narrative and the
outside texts, Stepto calls Narrative an advanced text. Stepto then examines the presence
and influence of William Lloyd Garrison’s and Wendell Phillip’s texts. Ultimately, he
claims their enthusiasm for Douglass superseded any desire to control his narrative.
Finally, Stepto analyzes Douglass’ authorial strengths and concludes that Douglass has
“explicitly authenticated what is conventionally a white Northerner’s validating text”
(157), and has shown that his literacy symbolizes his intellectual liberty.
Stepto succeeds in determining the functions of each voice and text. For instance,
with Garrison he aptly attributes Garrison’s role as a “white validation of a newfound
black voice” (149) to a white audience. He evaluates Garrison as “more interested in
writing history…and recording his place in it” (150) and implies Garrison’s egotism
through specific textual examples. He studies the prevalence of the ‘I’ in Garrison’s
speech at the Nantucket Anti-Slavery Convention: “‘ I rose…I reminded…I appealed’”
(150) and his failure to reference Douglass in his speech. Therefore, Stepto makes a
valid claim that Garrison was more concerned with furthering his career. Furthermore,
Stepto assesses Douglass’ literary strengths well. He notes Douglass’ impressive ability
to apply different writing methods “with ease and with a degree of simultaneity” (151-2).
Additionally, he attributes and traces Douglass’ various rhetorical methods as a marker of
Douglass’ “emerging comprehension of freedom and literacy” (152) and he calls the
slave narrative an expression of intellectual freedom. Stepto selects strong textual details
that best exemplify the Douglass’ reasoning and writing skills. In particular, Stepto
prizes Douglass’ ability to translate personal history to autobiography, such as in the
instance of Douglass’ analysis of the slave songs. Stepto sees them and Douglass’
explanation of them as “another illumination of his path from slavery to freedom” (154)
and admires Douglass’ combination of the past with the present as a personal
advancement in an exploration of ethnography and his individual relation to the group.
Also, Stepto includes the letter to William Hamilton that “exhibits Douglass’ increasingly
refined sense of how to manipulate language” (154). Overall, Stepto conducts a strong
formalist critique of Douglass.
Yet, conversely, Stepto’s formalist perspective hinders his argument as it presents
a narrow point-of-view. Often, his language is opaque. He uses wordy phrasing and
spends too much time in the introduction of his argument differentiating between the four
forms of narrative, all of which overlap and at points seem indistinguishable from one
another. Stepto has a clarification for each rule, and, Douglass, in fact, is one of them. In
addition, he makes a vague historical reference to “the friction that developed between
Garrison and Douglass in later years” (150) but fails to examine the statement in a more
conclusive manner. And, after discussing the tension between Garrison and Douglass,
Stepto refuses to admit that Garrison’s preface was “at war” (150) with Douglass’ story
“for authorial control of the narrative as a whole” (150). Rather, he backtracks and
claims that Garrison “remains a member of Douglass’ audience far more than he assumes
the posture of a competing or superior voice” (151) because of his enthusiasm for
Douglass. However, his shift is troublesome since he establishes Garrison as self-
absorbed, and then as subservient to Douglass through textual evidence only. Historical
proof would provide a more powerful insight and a reliable source into Garrison’s
motivations. Stepto has an obvious literary bias. On the first page alone he creates a
comparison to the voices within the narrative to those of “‘characters’ in the ‘story’”
(146). Throughout the article he removes much of the historical context in favor of a
formalist approach. But ignoring historical elements Stepto reduces his credibility and
produces a less compelling critique. He mistakenly expects the text to speak for itself.
By detaching the historical aspect of a text connected to such a pivotal moment of social
upheaval for a literary and stylistic analysis, Stepto authors a reductive and confined
perspective of Douglass’ Narrative.