Analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano - Book Report/Review Example

 Equiano’s Travels Olaudah Equiano’s account of his travels and life, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, is one of the most important books that came out of an era of slavery that destroyed the lives of several generations of African communities. His work is peculiar in that it neither offers a condemnation of the practice of slavery; neither does it condone the practices that are associated with it. They however, offer an interesting account of the journey of an African boy from being a slave in America (which was then a part of Britain) to being independent and the master of an estate that was not of inconsiderable worth. It offers also, opportunities for the study of the mind of the first slaves, who came into contact with western culture and sought to imbibe it. Equiano’s relationship with English culture and Christianity offers some of the most valuable insights that are available to postcolonial critics of today. The book’s condemnation of the brutality that was practiced upon the slaves contrasts with Equiano’s acceptance of western culture and his decision to assimilate into their culture, providing postcolonial critics with examples of theories of hybridity and resemblance that are a part and parcel of the literary theory of today. Equiano does not seek to legitimize the practice of slavery in his autobiography. He however, unconsciously accepts many of the fetters of culture that enable the practice of slavery to carry on unchecked. His accounts of the travels that slaves were made to undertake expose the myth of the civilized European man. He describes the white men as being similar to the black man in most respects and in some cases states the relative superiority of the black races resulting from their reluctance to perform acts of extreme cruelty on their fellow human beings. Incidents on the ships that carried the slaves to the New World and the conditions of living on these ships are described in great detail and often, they do not portray the white colonizers in a good light. They are mostly depicted as a savage bunch of men who are ready to inflict any kind of torture upon the Africans that they carry only for the sake of money. Their cruelty that becomes a disturbing mental state is revealed through an incident where they refuse to feed the slaves surplus fish that was instead, thrown into the sea. This exposes to Equiano the cruelty that the white man is able to perpetrate upon others. He is thus able to identify the fact that it is not the color of one’s skin but one’s mind and wisdom that enables one to be truly civilized. It is this wisdom that he later seeks out by attempting to talk to the books when he arrives in England. This reveals to the reader the ambition that Equiano feels when he reaches England after having been made to leave his homeland in Nigeria where he enjoyed a much higher social position, where he was a part of the celebrated Igbo tribe. While perusing these initial sections of Equiano’s work, one may gain the impression that the book offers a complete critique of slavery and a condemnation of its principles. However, reading on, one finds that the position that Equiano takes up is more complex than a simple one-dimensional view. The phenomena of slavery and colonialism, two of the most important effects of the voyages that were undertaken for searching out and discovering new lands are more complex than what meets the eye and Equiano’s book is testimony to this fact. Even today, political thinkers with the advantage of historical hindsight have not been able to offer a single viewpoint regarding slavery; neither is the desirability of such a single viewpoint unquestioned. Equiano’s work is in fact, a complex comment for the times and conditions that he composed his work in and it is widely accepted as one of the first instances of the voices for abolitionism being raised. Equiano’s experiences in England and America, on the other hand, do not have many instances of cruelty to slaves barring, again, the initial sections where he criticizes the brutal treatment that was meted out to the slaves who often were made to do inhuman tasks and were ill-treated. They were brutally punished and kept in positions where they would be unable to speak or eat for several days, Equiano recounts in his autobiography, while reminiscing about the times when his position even in the hierarchy for slaves was not very high. While such inhuman conditions did pain Equiano and draw his censure (though not openly when they happened), they fail to affect him at a personal level when he later becomes a favorite of his master. By not falling prey to the tendency to judge Equiano for this amnesia regarding the fate of the other slaves in the later stages of his book and focusing on the historical position that he was in, one may be able to see the underlying comment on the condition of slaves. This alerts us to the condition of the slaves because of which they were not even able to maintain friendships with other blacks. While Equiano does condemn the brutality while treating of it in his book, the structures that serve to hold up the framework of slavery, such as the assumptions of white supremacy are something that he does not give up on. His investment in his beliefs regarding white supremacy enable him o reach positions of relative superiority; however, he does so by affirming the supremacy of the culture of the enslaver. He adopts the culture of his oppressors and also takes up their religion, something which a lot of first generation slaves did not do. His zeal to be a part of the society that he thought of as superior urged him to attempt to culturally assimilate himself within white society, affirming the principles that were used by the white man in his justification of the subjugation of people of other races- his superiority over other races in the evolutionary ladder. However, the leap that Equiano made from being a slave to the master of an estate was a huge one and needs to be appreciated for the belief and hope that it provided to the slaves who came after him. His life, as he narrates it in his autobiography, thus, is also an account of how the any position of power that any race holds cannot be eternal or divinely ordained. The account also disproves the assumptions of uniformity that may be held regarding the members of any race at any given point of time in history. He succeeds in making a case for abolition through the manner in which he lived his life and achieved success, thus refuting claims that were made regarding the inferiority of the Negroid race. His joy, which he describes in great detail, at being released from slavery proves that his loyalties lay with the side that fought against abolition. His peculiar circumstances in life, however, force him to accept the yoke of white culture in return for material and social benefits that manifested them in more immediate terms. Claims that Olaudah Equiano was one of the first people to make a case for the abolition of slavery are not far-fetched. His life provided hope to many slaves who lived lives of drudgery and the limitations of his struggle can be almost entirely attributed to his position in history. Works Cited Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African. New Delhi: Heinemann, 1977. Read More