Olaudah Equiano

Issues:

"According to modern scholars, Equiano invented the slave narrative genre with The Interesting Narrative, which uses the Western genre of spiritual autobiography to record the narrator's journey from captivity to freedom" (Logan 52).

" . . . his account tells a representative tale . . ." (Logan 52).

" . . . his self-education and industry . . . " (Logan 52).

"Whether factually true or a literary construction, Equiano's compelling account of an African youth from a loving and respectable family includes excruciating details of the Atlantic slave trade that his contemporary audience and subsequent writers found representative of such a life" (Logan 52).

"In addition to securing his audience's sympathies, Equiano faced the additional problem of credibility. That is, many late-eighteenth-century readers would have doubted that an African was capable of such erudition, morality, and intellectualism; in fact, the question of whether Africans were capable of reason was important and unresolved in eighteenth-century science and philosophy and the cornerstone of pro- and antislavery arguments. Readers would have been skeptical of Equiano's depiction of the Middle Passage and the cruelties of slavery. To counter such resistance, Equiano comported himself eloquently in his narrative and gathered a formidable subscription list of influential sponsors; his efforts seem to have worked, since the text was successful in England, Ireland, and the United States" (Logan 52).

Equiano "challenges eighteenth-century readers' assumptions about Africa as a savage and uncivilized continent peopled with cannibals. Instead, [he] . . . demonstrates the marked contrast between slavery among Africans, a practice that existed among warring nations but that placed captives as well-treated servants with an opportunity to rise from their station, and the chattel slavery that characterized the mid-Atlantic trade. Equiano humanizes Africa for his white Western readers . . . " (Logan 53).

Questions:

1.) What values does Equiano associate which his homeland in Africa?

2.) How are the values discussed in question 1 contrasted with those of the Europeans during Equiano's first encounter with them? How are the manner and customs of the Europeans distinct from those of the Africans?

3.) Besides the cruelties and inhumane conditions aboard ship, what elements does Equiano include in his narrative of the Middle Passage? Why do you think he includes these details?

4.) Equiano concludes his chapter with appeals to his readers in the form of rhetorical questions. Discuss the ways that these questions work with the narrative to establish an argument against slavery.