Mike Hicks
Dr. Lisa Logan
AML 4101
6 October 2008

A Rhetorical Analysis of William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy

William Hill Brown’s historically significant work The Power of Sympathy—considered by many to be the first American novel—can be analyzed, like any other work, on its text alone. However, this would ignore the great insights that could be achieved by merely analyzing the front matter of the original 1789 book. What may at first seem like a superficial task in fact provides useful information regarding the text as a whole.

One of the most important queries answered by an analysis of the front matter of the work is the question of what demographic the novel was written for (or for whom it appealed most greatly to). The dedication that prefaces the novel makes abundantly clear that the novel was written for—or at the very least marketed to—the “young ladies of Columbia” as a cautionary tale regarding the fatal consequences of “seduction” (not an uncommon theme in this time period). After this dedication, Brown includes a brief preface in which he acknowledges the contempt held by many people for the novel as a form of literary expression, yet insists that it is necessary to expose the “consequences of seduction” as well as the “advantages of female education.” These are well-meaning notions to be sure, but raise questions on whether the work is feminist (pushing for female education) or not (seemingly pushing the idea of weakness and the ease of victimization of women).

Before these articles are encountered by the reader, a vivid and melodramatic depiction of a young woman’s demise (complete with the caption “O Fatal! Fatal Poison!”) presents itself on the very first page. The woman is identified as “Ophelia” and, prior to reading the work, it is perhaps excusable that the reader would be reminded of a certain other famous Ophelia in literature, also a tragic figure. Given the fame and respect that Hamlet had, it seems unlikely that the name is merely a coincidence. On the very next page the reader finds the title page, which contains a short poem regarding virtue, further driving Brown’s purpose of writing into the reader’s head.

Of course, novels (and all art for that matter) are not merely about the noble intentions that Brown has triumphantly—and somewhat pompously—declared in the opening pages of his novel. They are, after all, a money-making enterprise. It is only fitting then that the opening pages (as well as the first few letters in the epistolary novel) smack of sensationalism and sentimentalism. One is immediately encountered with images of death and promises of scandalous and salacious reading material for impressionable female readers (“SEDUCTION”). Thus, an average 18^th century reader (female or not) could very well have looked at this novel as the equivalent of a 1930’s gangster film—that is, the controversy and “smuttiness” of the work is overlooked as long as there is a moral message in the end. Although they were much less inclined to admit it nearly 220 years ago, sex sells, and always will.

Love is also a huge seller—the first 20 pages of the novel are filled with letters (not unlike the earlier Charlotte Temple) detailing characters’ plans to woo, be wooed, and admonitions from others to avoid wooing and being wooed. Grand odes to love and joy are presented (and subsequently mocked) which seem to go hand-in-hand with the emergence of romanticism in the Western world. Only further reading will indicate how much weight these themes will achieve through the rest of the text.