The early American novel was characterized by its emphasis on storytelling, literary language derived from England, events of American history, humanitarian reform, republican ideals and politics and a didactic style. Frederick Douglass' minor novel The Heroic Slave, the only work of fiction he wrote, is a good representation of the early American novel because of its emphasis on didactic storytelling including plot, characters and setting.
The story is based on newspaper articles of a slave rebellion of 1841 led by Madison Washington, an escaped African-American slave who was recaptured when he returned to Virginia to free his wife, and who led the rebellion on the American slave ship Creole. Although Douglass, in choosing fiction as his format for the story, uses artistic techniques, the novel is polemic in expression. Douglass' intention is to show how slaves fought for their freedom and were not illiterate, obedient, sub-human people. Basically all fictional artistry is subsumed to the book's message. Based on Douglass' own struggles for literacy and freedom, the novel does have a poignant tone.
In a reversal of commonly held beliefs and racist attitudes of the time, Douglass' hero Madison Washington is educated, articulate, brave, noble and kind while the white characters do not fare as well. The white slaveholders and slave drivers are portrayed as greedy, semi-literate, cruel brutes, and the white abolitionists are characterized as gentle people with firm beliefs about the evils of slavery but they lack the richness of spirit of Washington. Washington is drawn in the same heroic mold as Natty in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking novels. He is Douglass' symbol of black manhood.
When Litswell, a Northerner traveling through Virginia, comes across Washington giving a soliloquy in the woods, he is moved to describe him (standing in for the author) as of "manly form...black but comely...(of) Herculean strength; ...