Olaudah Equiano begins his journal entry by describing the ocean and the slave ship, which were the first things he saw when he was taken onto the slave ship. He was fascinated by them, but he soon realized that it was going to be a horrific journey. Equiano’s first thought was that they were going to kill him, for they had a different skin tone, bore long hair, and spoke a different language. The crew beat Olaudah when he refused to eat. The conditions under the deck where Equiano lived were dreadful: people were packed together so tightly that they were fighting for breathing room. This compactness caused some people to die of sickness and disease. Once there were three slaves who committed suicide by drowning themselves in the sea even though
The Slave Ship, by Marcus Rediker was wrote in 2007 about the cruel and brutal actions the slaves endured on their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. He states, “this has been a painful book to write, if I have done any justice to the subject, it will be a painful book to read.” Marcus Rediker accomplished exactly that. This book was not only compelling but emotional, heartbreaking, and makes a reader think, how could someone be so cruel to another living being. Within the first couple pages, the book brought me to tears. He mainly focused on the 1700’s when Britain controlled most of the slave trade throughout the world. During the book, Rediker informs the reader about the tortured slaves as they were shipped from West Africa to the new world. Marcus Rediker, a professor at the University of Pittsburg, taught history and starting researching the slave trade by
The authors relate their stories together to show there is multiple ways of being kidnapped. Both Equiano and Rowlandson describe how they were kidnapped as horrifying yet miserable. Another reason the narratives are related to each other are the time periods of the 17th and 18th century. In the 17th and 18th century they had the wars and slavery where Mary’s family was kidnapped while Equiano’s family was captured for slavery. Describing how they both felt during their time period of being kidnapped can bring them together to talk more about their stories.
In Slavery Today Kevin Bales and Becky Cornell reveal and focus on the slavery that is still happening today in the world. Surprisingly, the same brutality and total control that slaves have suffered for centuries still remains in parts of the world. Bales and Cornell discuss strategies needed to end slavery once and for all. I will use this selection to bring in examples of todays slavery and how it never really came to a complete end. The theme of slavery still, to this day, remains and the world doesn’t need to remain shy on this brutal topic.
There is no captivity novel that contains nothing but pleasure and comfort. In other words, every captivity novel contains a large amount of sorrow. In the narratives, Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano both experienced massive amounts of misfortune during their periods of captivity. For example, Rowlandson writes of her daughter dying from wounds she sustained during the mass kidnapping, murder, and pillage
Through the years of 1750 to 1901, the journey of thousands of humans sailed out overseas. With many decisions, they all experienced something different, from those who were forced to leave, had to leave or chose to leave. The voyage of slaves, convicts and free settlers differed immensely, yet, they still had slight similarities.
The American revolutionary war is marked as one of the historical victories to the American. Because of this victory, the Americans gained their independence from the British. It was a war for the sake of freedom and that is why the American found this cause worth dying and fighting for. Yet, many fighters died as victims of the war and others were taken as prisoners in the New York prison ships and the sugar houses in Manhattan. Edwin G.burrows, the author of The Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War, examines the horrifying treatment of the American prisoners by the British during the war of independence. This book gives an insight of what happened behind the walls of the British prisons by accumulating a large number of articles, biographies, and war memos to give the reader a better understanding of the forgotten patriots.
Within all major societies of the world exists a power struggle between the majority and the minority, the disenfranchised and the coddled. But no power struggle has achieved the same notoriety as the black slave’s plight in the Western world. From England to the West Indies and the Americas, black slaves suffered insurmountable trauma and subjugation. One of these slaves, Olaudah Equiano, recounts his experiences, both triumphant and pitiful, within the Americas and England to affect change in his audience and in the world. In his The Life of Olaudah Equiano, he utilizes specific rhetorical strategies to affect this change and to accomplish his goal. With his inclusion of himself as an irreplaceable character, his analysis of the hypocrisy of Christian slavers, and his analysis of the economic benefits of well-treated slaves, Equiano crafts his autobiography as a work of rhetoric that rivals any proponent of the slave trade.
Documenting not only the fear that the slaves faced but also the violence of both physical and sexual abuse, the most ghastly account was towards a slave women he was imprisoned with named Patsey. She was a slave who had the misfortune of
In both the inspiring narratives of Narrative in the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass’s and in Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs the respective authors demonstrate the horrors and disparity of slavery in there own ways. They both use their unique experiences in the difference facets of slavery to show a very complete picture of the problems and atrocities of slavery.
Captivity is defined as the state of being imprisoned or confined. A tragic experience is given a whole new perspective from Louise Erdrich 's poem, “Captivity”. Through descriptive imagery and a melancholic tone, we can see the poem and theme develop in her words. Erdrich takes a quote from Mary Rowlandson’s narrative about her imprisonment by the Native Americans and her response to this brings readers a different story based off of the epigraph. Louise Erdrich compiles various literary devices to convey her theme of sympathy, and her poem “Captivity” through specific and descriptive language brings a whole new meaning to Mary Rowlandson’s narrative.
Thus, we can see how each story of the captives help reveal the different feelings one might have while being held and dehumanized like Equiano and Rowlandson were. This is important because both rowlandson and Equiano were subject to torture, humiliation, and slavery. So, how would you react if you had someone you loved being subject to all these horrible, abusive
Could there be contrasts and likenesses between two accounts composed by two unique individuals? Confronting various types of afflictions? It is conceivable to discover contrasts and likenesses in two stories relating two various types of occasions? Imprisonment accounts were main stream with pursuers in both America and the European continents. Bondage stories of Americans relate the encounters of whites subjugated by Native Americans and Africans oppressed by early American settlers. Such stories were regularly utilized as promulgation or propaganda: accordingly, Europeans frequently stereotyped Native Americans as merciless and whites started to see subjugation of African-Americans as detestable. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the two narratives which are A Narrative of the Captivity and The interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equianoa.
Stories on how the oppressors (captors) treated their captives are widely known because of the narratives were written by the oppressed themselves. Two famous authors who were kidnapped and were made slaves reveal the difficulties they went through as captives as well as the challenges they faced in order to obtain their freedom. The oppressors in “A Narrative of the Captivity and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” by Mary Rowlandson were the Indians who held her and her daughter captive and sold them as property. While in From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa, the African, Written by Himself the oppressors are the slave traders who sell Equiano to different masters. Therefore, the oppressors in both
“A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” by Mary Rowlandson gives a first person perspective into the circumstances of captivity and cultural interaction and an insight to Rowlandson 's attitude towards the Indians, both before and after she was held captive.