Olaudah Equiano Journal

Tanya Barragan
Scott Lankford
English 48A
Olaudah Equiano

11/08/11

AUTHOR’S QUOTE

“I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened of my ignorance of what I was to undergo.” (683)

INTERNET QUOTE

“The best comparison is with Frederick Douglass's Narrative (1845), which follows the three-part pattern of spiritual and slave autobiographical work. Douglass's work depicts the same search for identity involving the attainment of manhood, education, especially the ability to read, and the securing of physical and spiritual liberations. Other connections concentrating on the spiritual conversion account in Chapter 10 of Equiano's work may be made with the Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and Jonathan Edwards's Personal Narrative.”
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/vassa.html

SUMMARY

The Narrative Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa, by Olaudah Equiano is a sad but true story about a young boy who is taken from his family and sold into slavery. This young boy tells a life of which he is sold from master to master and moved form one place to another, by ships and having hardships hit his life that would live with him for the rest of life. However, even with all that he had went through, there were a few good things that came from his life; he was still given a great education and chance to experience things that not all slaves got to experience. At the end he is given his freedom and gets to travel from place to place, not as a slave but as a free man getting to experience the travel in a whole different way from which he was a slave.

 

YOUR IDEAS/REACTIONS/RESPONSES TO THE AUTHOR’S IDEAS

I really thought that Olaudah Equiano’s work was full of detail and experience of what he saw and went through in his life. As he tells the story you can hear and picture the truth in what he was trying to tell. I found it sad as many of the things he saw and went through were horrific, but I found it very interesting that he used what he had been through to make a better life for himself and not hold a grudge; it was like he was thankful but not forgetful for his experience in life. I reacted to his work as great and honest. I saw him scared and fearful of many situations that he encountered and learned from each; as they were a new experience for him. He was thankful for the good that he given along the way; as he was taught English and given and education and used it to his advantage; which I found very smart of him to do. I was a little confused as to why he wasn’t angrier at his experience and forgave most of what he had been through. I tried to understand that he accepted the life that was given to him and used it to his knowledge, in his writing.

My response to the Author’s ideas say it the quote that I chose from his story. I think that Olaudah Equiano was trying to say, all he had been through from the moment he was sold was different and a sad experience. However, it was all about to change as he was about to set sail on a new adventure; which was not an adventure at all, but a new horror part of his life. He had a feeling that what he had already been through was not bad compared to what he was going to see and he was clueless as to what it was. I think that this says it all because this is exactly what happens. He comes to a new world, with different people, new things that he had never seen before. Some were good but most were bad because it was all new to him and he had to completely adjust, not only to a new world but a new life. I also think that the Internet quote says it all about his writing and comparing it to Frederick Douglass who also was another wonderful and fantastic writer and their stories are the same. They both express their life in the sadness of what they were going through and hoping and fighting for a better life.