Week 4: My Equiano Experience

     This memoir has probably been one of the more difficult reads (with only Hayy Ibn Yaqzan being potentially harder). The density of the text made it hard for me to focus and read. Some of the paragraphs last several pages! It was difficult to sit down and read three chapters in two days. That being said, I think the density and complexity of the text made it easier to unpack meaning and nuance. 

    There were a few things that I found surprising, especially about the slavery presented in the book. Most literature surrounding slavery presents it in a really emotional way. That usually serves to show how awful slavery is. When I saw this story and heard it was the life story of a slave and that it was expressly made as an argument against slavery in hopes of ending it, I thought that it may be a bit more emotional and detailed into how horrible slavery was. Instead, Equiano seems to casually describe his time as a slave in a very matter-of-fact way that did little to convince me that slavery was horrible. (I, of course, know slavery is horrible, the book just doesn't present it this way.) There was no tug at my heartstrings reading this. It seemed to be very emotionally neutral- and Equiano even makes it out to seem like he is treated fairly well by his master.

    As for the depiction of slavery in Africa, I thought that was interesting. I have rarely heard of/learned about the original slaves and their lives in Africa before they were forcefully sent to the Americas. I think the author's casual description of being captured was pretty interesting- almost as if it were just a normal part of living in that part of Africa at that time period. Also, their treatment of slaves as almost equals really stood out to me. I wonder if this perception of slavery is what allowed Africans to sell their own people into slavery so easily? Did they maybe think that American slavery would be as kind and equal as their own?

Comments

  1. Monique Cov.February 3, 2023 at 1:57 PM

    Hey Jalen. You make a really good point. I have often heard and read accounts about slavery being described in a very emotional way to both shows the horrors of it and the pathos used would create a good argument calling for the abolition of slavery. I wonder if the reason he wrote his memoir this way is entirely purposeful. Perhaps, Equiano thought that the members of parliament wouldn't take his story and request seriously if it was filled with emotions. They might have seen it as a "sob story" and dismiss it as being too common or unformal to be taken seriously. To convince mass majority of people you use emotion but to convince leaders you need more than emotion, you need reason and solid argumentation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Catalina DegnanFebruary 5, 2023 at 8:01 PM

    Hey Jalen. I loved reading your commentary and experience with reading this novel so far. I had a similar reaction to you when noticing how casual Equiano's tone is. For being a book full of very hard topics to swallow, it's interesting how matter of fact and unemotional Equiano portrays the events. It's by far a different perspective than what I imagined I was going to read.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Griffin JonesFebruary 6, 2023 at 5:09 PM

    Hey Jalen, I definitely agree that this book is a dense read, and I certainly needed to take breaks and annotate in order to stay concentrated. I also agree that the lack of emotion in his description of slavery was not what I expected. At first, I thought this may relate to the purpose and audience of the book. Maybe he didn't want to make Parliament feel those intense emotions for fear that they would disregard the work as being too expressive and not factual?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Paulos HabtewoldFebruary 21, 2023 at 10:38 PM

    Hi Jalen, I agree with your input. When I was first reading the story, slavery was not portrayed with close to the same horror as we were told in our history classes and the history books. Equiano talks about slavery as if it is normal, which is probably because it was at the time. He also is probably doing this because he understands the audience, he has would immediately drop the story if it started of thrashing slavery and talking only about how bad slavery was from the beginning to the end.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 10: Pachinko, Identity, and Family

     Pachinko  is a book so jam-packed with meaning and depth that it would be hard to say everything there is to say about the book in one blog post. The story is a deep examination of identity and belonging- something we've seen in a lot of the more contemporary texts in this class. Pachinko 's wide variety of characters all struggle to feel in place in a society catered towards heterosexual Japanese men. It almost feels cynical in this way, with Solomon and Noa returning to pachinko after working so hard to get an education and move up the social ladder. I think it could be argued that this sort of acceptance, the kind gained from working hard enough to become a model minority, is not the way to find belonging. Family is key here. Society is a hard thing to find belonging in, especially when you exist outside of the accepted and typical behaviors and identities within it. But family is a constant. When society doesn't accept us, our family often does. Noa's happie...
Read more

Week 8: Biblical References

     Pachinko has a lot of biblical references in terms of characters names (which may or not be obvious depending on how familiar you are with the bible). Characters share names with biblical figures whom they share a lot with.     Isak, for example, is very similar to Isaac from the Bible. Abraham, one of the most important patriarchal figures in both Christianity and Judaism, is the father of Isaac. Abraham and his wife have Isaac when they are both very old, as a gift from God, which they are incredibly grateful for. However, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him, similar to how people from that time may have sacrificed an animal. Abraham is reluctant, but decides to goes through with it. Right before sacrificing his son, an angel stops Abraham. In this sense, Isak and Isaac have a lot in common. Both are 'sacrifices'- Isaac literally and Isak in terms of his selflessness in general and specifically to Sunja.      Noa is clearly a referen...
Read more

Week 3: Smasher Sullivan

     In "The Secret River" by Kate Grenville, the character of Smasher Sullivan stands out as a powerful representation of the violence and brutality inflicted upon the Indigenous people by white settlers during the colonial period. He definitely shocked me as I read the novel.      From his introduction, where he brags about hanging an Indigenous person, to the end of the novel, Smasher's character is fairly static, showing little to no mercy for the people he encounters. However, one of the most disturbing aspects of Smasher's character is his dehumanization of the Indigenous people. He views them as obstacles and issues to be dealt with, rather than as human beings. This dehumanization serves to justify the violence and exploitation that white settlers inflicted upon the Indigenous people. By removing the personhood from the Indigenous people, it makes the killing, stealing, and other atrocities less morally reprehensible.      It seemed t...
Read more