In 1789, 23 years after buying his own freedom, Olaudah Equiano published The Interesting Narrative of the LIfe of Olaudah Equiano, his autobiographical slave narrative beginning with the day he was stolen from his home and forced into a life of perpetual movement (James 1-2). While this constant movement could be characterized as constant migration, it is typically a conscious decision to pick up one's life and restart it in a new setting. It is a journey traditionally looked upon with optimism. It is a journey taken with the hope that there is a better life somewhere out there. Yet in the case of Olaudah Equiano and many other Africans sold into slavery, this migration was not an independent, conscious decision. It was forced. The typical constants associated with migration, such as family, identity, and fundamental values,
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This structure and choice of words by the time Equiano reaches the coast juxtaposes the lighter, happier tone from before he was sold into slavery. It is the end of his innocence and the end of his original, single identity as Olaudah Equiano, a young African boy with a family and a home.
Just as he begins his journeys back and forth the Atlantic, Equiano is given a new name: Gustavas Vassa. Symbolically, it signals the emergence of a secondary, European …show more content…
A more confident Equiano emerges as the descriptions turn, once again, to being more positive. He has "Georgia superfine clothes [that] made no indifferent appearance" and calls himself an "able bodied sailor" and "[his] own master" (Equiano 124-125). He has his own belongings, his own confidence, and perhaps the beginnings of yet another identity- one more complex than
This structure and choice of words by the time Equiano reaches the coast juxtaposes the lighter, happier tone from before he was sold into slavery. It is the end of his innocence and the end of his original, single identity as Olaudah Equiano, a young African boy with a family and a home.
Just as he begins his journeys back and forth the Atlantic, Equiano is given a new name: Gustavas Vassa. Symbolically, it signals the emergence of a secondary, European …show more content…
A more confident Equiano emerges as the descriptions turn, once again, to being more positive. He has "Georgia superfine clothes [that] made no indifferent appearance" and calls himself an "able bodied sailor" and "[his] own master" (Equiano 124-125). He has his own belongings, his own confidence, and perhaps the beginnings of yet another identity- one more complex than