Literature Network » Frederick Douglass

Racial sacrifice and citizenship: the construction of masculinity in Louisa May Alcott's 'The Brothers.'

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From: Studies in American Fiction
Date: 19970922
Author:Patterson, Mark

Louisa May Alcott addresses measuring a black man's masculinity, through honor, strength and empowerment and by the degree of which he will sacrifice. This theme is portrayed by the black soldiers who attacked Fort Wagner in order to eventually win rights granted by the 15th Amendment.

How do you make a man? In Frederick Douglass's slave narrative, man-making is the consequence of physically and psychologically resisting slavery's oppression -- in his case, through battle with his overseer, Covey. However, implicit in the formulation of his claim is the discursive quality of that ...

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