Similarities Between Frederick Douglass And Olaudah Equiano

Slavery is a topic that many people avoid talking about. The period of time that slavery existed was to many people far too long. Slavery existed in America until after the Civil war, which ended May ninth 1865. Slavery was not just about slaves who were on plantations forced to work and beaten almost daily. It was also about the slaves who escaped from Slavery and continued to advocate for the freedom of their brethren. Frederick Douglass is one example of slaves who escaped from slavery and afterwards became abolitionist. He published “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” as a way to show his disdain for the institution of slavery. Another example of an abolitionist’s writing is “The interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano” written by Olaudah Equiano. Both narratives were true stories written in the point of view of a slave. The two are very different contextually and scholastically, but accordingly, there are many similarities among the two.

He describes the anguish, anxiety and despair that surrounded him on the slave ship with vivid detail. He leaves no detail spared as he describes slaves throwing themselves off of the boat seeing death as a better alternative than the fate that awaits them. Equino uses imagery in his text to show the reader the anguish they felt and appeals to the readers emotions to elicit a response to the wrongdoings of the white men that had enslaved them and kept them in such horrible conditions. For example he writes, “One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again…”(pg. 173) this shows the reader the cruelty of the men on the boat and makes the reader feel an emotion. This contrast with the more ethos driven writings of Frederick