The Journey Of Olaudah Equiano Essay

A stigma that was attached to English culture during the late eighteenth century is that to be considered entirely English you needed to be free of racial and cultural others. The preservation of the necessary boundaries between the colonised racial and the national self solely relied on the aspect of historical Englishness. Attached to every culture there are always particular stereotypes and being English is no different. Actions such as tea drinking and wearing silk garments were commodities that had been attained by the population through the Empire. Equiano’s narrative in this autobiography can be considered proof of the presence of African ancestry in England. Equiano began his journey as an illiterate Ibo speaking African but transformed into a well-educated, well-read English speaker. Taking this transformation into consideration, the readers are left with this substantial indication of Equiano’s assimilation from one society to another. The theme of self-worth is prevalent from the beginning of the novel, …show more content…
Equiano spends most of his life fighting to be seen as equal and be accepted by the superior population and it is through this that his loss of identity can be acknowledged. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano tells the story of Equiano’s transition from being an uneducated African slave to becoming a literate English man through acquiring knowledge and learning how to read and write. It would have been impossible for Equiano to discover his own identity without the help of the white community and the skills that he was taught by them. Thus by representing English national identity throughout the novel, Equiano challenges its racial factor whilst preserving his African