"Olaudah Equiano"

Essay # 55578

African-American Studies
Literature > American

"Olaudah Equiano"

An analysis of the autobiography called "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano".

2,501 words () | 5 sources | APA | 2004 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper addresses the work from a perspective that takes its plot into minimal account, while focusing on the themes of the work, such as the fluidity and flux of identity. The writer also points out its overweening concepts, such as the explicit dangers of oppression and slavery within a framework of basic and empathetic humanity, which are put up against the strictures and rituals of this oppression in the work. It shows how Equiano's narrative forces the reader to confront its protagonist as a human being. This, in turn, establishes a bridge of empathy connecting the reader and the narrator so that the two can share a sense of oppression and outrage at the subhuman conditions of slavery under which the narrator is forced to live.

From the Paper:

"When reviewing a text, it is interesting to take a perspective of the thematic and conceptual relevancy of the text rather than simply reissuing another version of the plot and drawing no conclusions from the often implicit nature of its conceptual and thematic framework. Looking at a text in this way allows the reader to construct his/her own meaning in a more active relationship with the text than simple summarizing would allow. In the case of Olaudah Equiano's slave-narrative autobiography of his life, the thematic and conceptual matters of the book are intrinsically linked to its revelatory plotline, however, and the reader must link the two to achieve a full understanding of the
work and its relevancy."