Olaudah Equiano Analysis

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In 1789, “The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano” was published and since then has shown immense popularity. Olaudah Equiano is the author and throughout the book he expressed his stories, opinions and facts about his life as an African American during slavery. As a young boy at the age of eleven he was kidnapped along with his sister. For most of his life he consisted of a just another slave, although he eventually brought his freedom and helped influence the abolishment of slavery. Later writing this novel to help others comprehend what happened on his side of history. Throughout this novel Equinao writes about the brutality towards slaves, brutalizing effects upon enslaves, religion and economic issues. European audiences…show more content…
If slaves tried to run away, most of the time they would be caught in action. The punishment of being caught stopped most slaves. Runaway slaves had a heart full of bravery. Equiano describes a situation that happened to him during the Middle Passage. He claims, two countrymen claimed they would rather die than have a life of misery so they attempted suicide. Both men decided to jump into the sea. “However, two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully, for this attempting to prefer death to slavery (Equiano, 59).” Brutality was real in slavery, otherwise the men would not have felt the need to jump over board. An abolitionists similar to Equiano, is a man named John Wesley. He was the leader of a Methodist movement, social reformer and wrote “Thoughts on Slavery” in 1774 (Scofield, 9/ 21/15). “In 1783, Wesley began preaching his new brand of Protestantism, which emphasized an intense personal experience of salvation and a life of thrift, abstinence and hard work (Hunt, 573).” Citizens from the eighteenth century would highly benefit hearing his thoughts and feelings. By hearing this stories and facts their eyes may be opened to all the horrible things they are causing. His words would speak truth and express to them what they are putting the African Americans

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