It is still more
important on account of the presence within it of a didactic purpose; a
characteristic which for good or for evil has been a prominent feature
of the English novel. Sir Thomas More had made use of fiction in the
sixteenth century to urge his ideas of political and social reforms.
Bunyan, more than a century later, used the same means to promulgate
his conception of Christian life. While English narrative fiction was
still in its first youth, Mrs. Behn protested against the evils of the
slave trade through the medium of a story which may be considered a
forerunner of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
To interest the public in a distant country or an abstract principle,
the novel is the most effective literary means. A treatise on the slave
trade by Mrs. Behn, however strong and truthful, would have met with
the little attention which is accorded to the sufferings of a distant
and unknown people. But the novel has the advantage over the treatise,
that it deals with the particular and not the general, with the
individual and not the nation. It can place before the reader a limited
number of persons; it can interest his mind and heart in their
characters, lives, and fate; and by subjecting them to the horrors of
the evil to be depicted, excite through commiseration for their
sufferings a hatred of the cause which inflicted them.
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