The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

“The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” conveys a dramatic story of the life of Olaudah Equiano, which reveals the life of people in the epoch when slavery emerged. The author attempts apparently to make his narration more dramatic to stress his sufferings and horrors he had to pass through in the course of his life. Slavery is apparently the darkest part of his life, but the author makes up the situation even more tragic when he depicts the episode from his life when he was stolen with his sister by some people. What makes this episode contrived is the fact that the narrator was captured with his sister, while he could be stolen along with any other child from his village.

The author attempts to make his enslaving more dramatic and tragic. As he is enslaved along with his sister, the author gets an opportunity to reveal all the horrors and sufferings of slaves, which are unthinkable for readers. For instance, as he is enslaved with his sister, he is definitely attached to her as his only relative he stayed with. The following separation brings in more tragic elements into his narration. As a result, from the beginning of the narration, the author makes his book full of tragic events.

However, the situation could be tragic but quite different from the one depicted by Olaudah Equiano, when he was stolen along with his sister. In fact, if there were a few attackers, they were likely to choose the boy solely because they could sell him at higher price. Taking into consideration his prospects as a slave, he could be employer at hard work and be more productive. Furthermore, it is unlikely that there were only two children in the village. Finally, they were supposed to be the defense of the village from potential attackers and someone should warn the village about the strangers as was the case before the enslaving of the narrator.