Literary Event: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, written in 1789, is an autobiography written by an African man who had been kidnapped, sold into slavery, and later gained his freedom. In the book, after describing his homeland of Essaka, Equiano goes on to explain the terror of being kidnapped into slavery and eventually loaded onto a ship bound first for Barbados, then the United States. He describes the nightmare that was the Middle Passage in all its horror: Africans jumping overboard to escape a life of slavery, whippings, being chained together, and the stench of the hold. He discusses what it was like to be taken to a place where nobody even speaks your language. One of the worst parts, in Equiano’s estimation, was the practice of separating family and friends from one another. Of this, he says: “Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery” (Equiano).
Eventually, Equiano ends up in London, where he learns to read, write, and speak English. From there, he goes on a series of naval adventures and passes through the hands of multiple masters until he is finally able to buy his freedom in 1766.
This book was one of the first accounts of slavery to be written by a formerly enslaved person, and Equiano faced a lot of criticism for it. According to Sabino and Hall, “Equiano has been characterized variously as a fraud, a plagiarist, an apologist, a hero, a capitalist, and a guerilla fighter” (Sabino). He also dealt with “the elitist assumption that an Igbo could not acquire sufficient competency in English language and culture to author such an acceptably English text” (Sabino). The idea that he must be a fraud or could not have actually written his autobiography himself is rooted in racism and stigma. His critics refuse to believe that an African man would be capable of learning English to such an advanced degree. Additionally, these critics claim that Equiano isn’t a reliable narrator of his own life. Because of this, Equiano was later forced to include letters at the beginning of his book attesting to his good character as proof of his history.
Equiano’s Interesting Narrative is a direct challenge to the racist stigma of his time, and this is precisely why it faced so much backlash. The stigma of black Africans as being unintellectual, uncivilized, and generally incapable of speaking for themselves is challenged by this well-written, articulate firsthand experience. Additionally, this book does more than simply challenge stigma: “Equiano succeeds in creating a narrative voice and a fictional self that emerge…to form a prototypical Black hero and introduce themes and styles that continue to dominate the Black literary tradition” (Samuels).
The criticism Equiano faced for writing his Narrative is different from the criticism Will and Jada Smith have faced, but both are rooted in the same old stigmas and racism. Where a white actor may have been given a pass for his actions, Will Smith has been vilified across the media (and for that matter, so has Jada, even though all she did was sit there). Despite his teary apology, he is now banned from the Academy Awards for a decade. The standards and stakes are always higher for black folks, both in 1789 and today.
Works Cited:
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vasso, the African. London, 1789.
Sabino, Robin, and Jennifer Hall. “The Path Not Taken: Cultural Identity in the Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano.” MELUS, vol. 24, no. 1, 1999, pp. 5–19, https://doi.org/10.2307/467904. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022.
Samuels, Wilfred D. “Retrospective Glance: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Reconsidered.” Negro History Bulletin, vol. 46, no. 4, 1983, pp. 99–100, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44246884. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022.
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