Olaudah Equiano

AP Lang Lecture SMIC

Miniature Biography

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Olaudah Equiano Nationality: African Lifespan: c. 1745 – 1797 Kidnapped at 11 & brought to Barbados Of note: after buying his freedom, he finally settled in England.

Famous Book – The

Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Author’s name included somewhere in the title, the phrase “as written by him/herself,” and an identification of the author as a slave or African

Olaudah Equiano

   Equiano’s autobiography is one of the first slave narratives by a black African to be published.

Slave autobiography and abolitionist literature begins with this narrative.

The specific reason these texts were written was to bring about political change.

Three Part Structure of the Slave Narrative

 Enslavement  Escape  Freedom

Evaluate Autobiographies

   What personal information does the author give that a biographer would probably not be able to give?

How reliable do you think autobiographies are?

On the other hand, what can autobiographies, such as Equiano’s, tell us that other historical documents cannot?

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Activity

From what point of view is this selection written? Why might that have been startling to European readers?

Find an example of “loaded language.” [your book calls this “sensory details.”] Find an example of archaic language. I challenge you: Don’t use the footnotes!  List anecdotes he uses.

Find an example of irony.

Find an example of passages that help you make inferences about his beliefs?

Compare Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative to Equiano’s slave narrative.