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Olaudah Equiano. AP Lang Lecture SMIC. Miniature Biography. 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.
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Olaudah Equiano AP Lang Lecture SMIC
Miniature Biography • 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 • On the other hand, what can autobiographies, such as Equiano’s, tell us that other historical documents cannot?
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.