The Heroic Slave Analysis

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In Frederick Douglass’ The Heroic Slave and Pauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood, black women, and their bodies, play a defining role. These women, respectively, are Madison Washington’s wife and Dianthe Lusk. In both texts there is a clear distinction between the men’s feelings toward the women in their lives; while Reuel Briggs and Aubrey Livingston talk about how much they “love” Dianthe, Madison Washington shows it through his actions, and through their actions both Reuel and Aubrey show that they do not truly love Dianthe - they are clearly infatuated and obsessed. If actions speak louder than words, then Madison Washington’s actions toward or for his wife in The Heroic Slave show that he is truly in love with her, or at least as close to …show more content…
Even before he meets Dianthe, Reuel has a strange sense of what love is; he says, “The woman I marry must be to me a necessity, because I love her; because so loving her, ‘all the current of my being flows to her,’ and I feel she is my supreme need” (23). This seems to be more akin to unhealthy obsession and infatuation than it is to love. Reuel’s usage of “me” and “my” throughout this thought of his shows how self-centered his idea of love is, and this is exactly how he treats his relationship with Dianthe. He idealizes her from the moment he sees her - she is nothing more than a sad looking girl with beautiful features; he doesn’t bother trying to get to know who she is, or what she needs for her own benefit, not his. This form of infatuation is exacerbated by the fact that before he meets Dianthe, Reuel is already a lonely and borderline misanthropic character. His idea of love for Dianthe is a product of his loneliness and desperation to have someone of his own, and therefore he is unable to truly see her as an individual with her own wants and needs. A particular instance is when he brings her back to consciousness; he basically keeps the truth from her, gives her a new identity, and claims her for himself. When Aubrey suggests looking for Dianthe’s friends, his and Reuel’s conversation goes like this: “‘Is there any hurry, Aubrey?’ pleaded Reuel, anxiously. ‘Why not wait until her memory returns…” and Aubrey replies with, “for my part, I would preserve her incognito indefinitely” (36). Here, we have one example of Reuel’s (and Aubrey’s) selfishness concerning Dianthe. Reuel doesn’t want to let Dianthe go, so he begins to make excuses. Later, he says, “[I will] marry her before she awakens to consciousness
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