Author Intrusions

Throughout the book, Davis often refers to herself, the author, as "I," and addresses the reader as "you," as if she's having a conversation with the reader about the book. For example, the book begins, "Let me tell you a story of To-Day,—very homely and narrow in its scope and aim." Chapter V begins, "Now that I have come to the love part of my story." In addition to these short descriptions of what she's about to tell the reader, she also makes assumptions about the reader and embarks on sermons about what she thinks the reader wants, and what the reader should want, should believe, and should do. The first five pages of the novel consist of one of these sermons, in which Davis refers to the Civil War, slavery, patriotism, and chivalry, and notes that she will write about other truths "that do not...