Textual Study: Olaudah Equianos Biography

Ele and Lara

The eighth edition (of

which there were 9) was

printed in 1794 in

Norwich!

Our text is a biography of a man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of 11 and then bought his own freedom and fought for the abolition of slavery. GENRE: BiographyAUDIENCE: Peers in the abolition movement, educated forward thinking people.PURPOSE: To inform, to assist to abolitionist cause.

Our text is a biography of a man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of 11 and then bought his own freedom and fought for the abolition of slavery. GENRE: BiographyAUDIENCE: Peers in the abolition movement, educated forward thinking people.PURPOSE: To inform, to assist to abolitionist cause.

CONTEXT• Slavery was abolished in the United Kingdom in

1833 by the Slavery Abolition Act, forty-four years after the publication of our text.

• Olaudah’s name meant “someone with a loud voice and who is well spoken” he was proven to live up to this.

• Olaudah was lucky as in 1757 whilst working for a woman in Falmouth he was educated and taught to read and write allowing him to write this memoir which has such impact on the abolition movement. Many slaves were not given this chance. It also played a large part in the buying of his freedom as he made his money trading, something made much harder if you cannot read or write.

• “One of his fellow abolitionists said that Equiano was 'of more use to the Cause than half the People of the Country'. ”

• Slavery was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1833 by the Slavery Abolition Act, forty-four years after the publication of our text.

• Olaudah’s name meant “someone with a loud voice and who is well spoken” he was proven to live up to this.

• Olaudah was lucky as in 1757 whilst working for a woman in Falmouth he was educated and taught to read and write allowing him to write this memoir which has such impact on the abolition movement. Many slaves were not given this chance. It also played a large part in the buying of his freedom as he made his money trading, something made much harder if you cannot read or write.

• “One of his fellow abolitionists said that Equiano was 'of more use to the Cause than half the People of the Country'. ”

Lexis

• The text has an intelligent and well educated register with plenty of polysyllabic and Latinate lexis such as “Salutation” and “Element” which we would not usually expect from a slave of the period as they would not have been educated and English would not be there native tongue. However Olaudah was educated by his owners.

• The adjective loathsome is transformed into an unusual abstract noun by the addition of the suffix –ness in the text. It means “the quality of being disgusting to the senses or emotions.” and is not a common form used today as loathsome itself has decreased in usage.

Pragmatics• The text reveals the depth of inequality

between black and white people of the time period.

• It also demonstrates the depravity of the conditions and treatment of all crew and cargo upon slave ships as “such brutal cruelty…not only shown toward us blacks but also to some of the whites…” it recounts one of the white crew members being flogged to death thus suggesting that the barbarity was not restricted strictly to racial inequality.

• Not only this but Olaudah’s descriptions make us understand just how animalistic the crew members were, ‘The white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner’ he then says how the white men treated the black people as animals ‘They tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute’

• We can infer from his language that death was preferable to life and treatment of black people on slave ships. ‘I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me’

Graphology • The long S is used frequently in

this text and in others of the period.

• It was a hangover from the roman cursive, a script used in ancient Rome.

• Specific rules governed it’s usage for example it could only be used at the beginning or middle of a word.

Grammar

• The prepositions and pronouns in this piece are used in a non-standard way.

• There is also example of archaic lexis such as “shewn” a now incorrect form of the word “shown”.

• The only punctuation present are . , ; : this is a transition point not usually occurring at the point in the sentence at which they do in this text.

Sentences

• The sentences used are mainly all complex sentences with multiple subordinate clauses, in these times people would have had the time to write things like this and ponder over what they were reading unlike today in our fast paced society.

• The sentences are also mainly passive and not active, he writes ‘I was not long suffered’ he is not performing the action, the action is being done to him.