earticle

영어

As one of the early writers in African American literature, Olaudah Equiano is well known for his Interesting Narrative, which is considered a prototypical slave narrative. Through the maneuver of rhetorical devices, he astutely criticizes the inhuman violence of slave trade and the vicious practices of the slavery across the Atlantic Ocean. He demonstrates how a slave’s life can be drastically transformed into a story of success. His narrative is significant in its contribution to the abolition of slavery with his poignant description of the inhuman treatment of slaves and the vicious institution of slavery. He astutely recognized the importance of a language and culture. The hybridity of his cultural identity, African and English, is parallel to his life as a navigator. Sea becomes a conduit for him that connects lands and a sphere that offers him the opportunity to visit many places and meet people from all kinds of walk of life. Above all, the acquisition of a new language, English, and later the skill for navigation becomes the most important tools for him, becoming a man of intellect and culture. This paper examines how the author appropriates the language, culture, and even religion of the west and turns them into valuable assets that helped change his status from a slave to a freeman and rise to a man of power to write an influential narrative.