In: Psychology
What is the overall point of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself? What is his story referencing and why?
The Interesting Narrative of the
Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African is an
autobiography written by Olaudah Equiano in 1789 in London. The
book primarily focuses on how he was kidnapped from East Africa
when he was 11 and brought to West Indies and then sold as a slave
to someone in the UK.
He narrates the journey across Atlantic to America and England, the
difference in treatment in the two countries, the hardships he
undergoes, his work in the plantation and in the sea, the brutality
of the white people and eventually buying his freedom from his new
master Robert King. He wrote this autobiography after becoming a
Freeman which contributed and motivated the anti-slavery
movements.
He accounts how the slaves were cunningly stolen by the white to
work in the plantations and ships. He also narrates the painful
life as a slave and the graceful endurance of the slaves because
they were insecure. His narrations provide us with the inhuman and
uncivilised nature of the white people of that time.