Gustavas Vassa, the African

I. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African

1. This book is an autobiographical journey of Olaudah Equiano's experiences, having been born in Africa in Eboe as the son of a chief and then kidnapped along with his sister while playing and taken aboard a slave ship. He was then sold to a Navy officer, Michael Pascal, who renamed him Gustavas Vassa and provided schooling for him. In the Navy, he was a powder boy who carried gunpowder on deck as needed for Naval battles, and once the war was over, expected to be rewarded with the prize money and his freedom; he received neither. He was subsequently sold to yet another sea captain, Robert King, who trained him to be a gauger. That skill got him out of much of the misery he saw his fellow slaves suffering. Back in England, he tried to be a hairdresser but that did not work out, and then he was back at sea again, going to the Caribbean. He met Horatio Nelson on this trip the one who won the Battle of Trafalgar and afterward began working to outlaw slavery. There was actually an abolitionist in England at the time, Granville Sharp, and Equiano went to him in an ineffective effort to save a fellow slave, John Annis. Once again, he went to the Caribbean, and this time he became a Christian. However, one of the slave owners tried to pull him back into slavery, and he barely escaped.

Equiano's main purpose in writing the book seems to be to chronicle his life, but

to be with his mother and three-year-old sister. He was taken out into the forest and one of the men struck him with a machete. When he cried out to his "father," Okonkwo, Okonkwo was fearful of appearing weak and dealt him a fatal blow. In the years following Ikemefuna's death, Okonkwo suffered. He missed the boy, and then nearly lost his daughter Ezinma, to an illness but treated her with herbs and saved her life. At a funeral, his gun went off accidentally and killed one of the dead man's sons, an accident that caused Okonkwo to be exiled for seven years. By the time he returned, Christians had become established nearby, and his son Nwoye had become a Christian, to Okonkwo's shame. Angered by the new government that had taken over, Okonkwo beheads a messenger and is found dead afterward, having hanged himself. The main purpose of the book is to examine the character of Okonkwo, whose life is driven by the fear of being unmanly like his father. This character study involves characterizations of some of the other characters, as well, because it is important to see what it is about them that Okonkwo appreciates or has difficulty dealing with. His daughter, Ezinma, for example, has close ties to him. He keeps wishing

Category: History - G