‘A Decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind’
With his rhetorical awareness, Thomas Jefferson has successfully turned himself into a character, and responses to the darker sides of this founding father have resembled that of readers expecting consistency in a fictional character. However, like a modernist character, Jefferson could be inconsist...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
2006-03-01
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| Series: | Transatlantica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/436 |
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| Summary: | With his rhetorical awareness, Thomas Jefferson has successfully turned himself into a character, and responses to the darker sides of this founding father have resembled that of readers expecting consistency in a fictional character. However, like a modernist character, Jefferson could be inconsistent—liberal and racist : these « contradictions » inaugurated a Southern strategy of response to criticism on race relations, which can be fruitfully compared with the discourse of Ike McCaslin in Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses. |
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| ISSN: | 1765-2766 |