Olaudah Equiano Compare And Contrast

With love,

The pungent smell of blood, sweat and tears filled the clean, crisp air. There lay a black boy, flat upon his chest, on the deck of a smooth sailing ship. His feet, hands and neck were bound with metal chains fastened to the railings of the ship. By his side stood a huge Oburoni armed with a long whip which he applied with merciless power and precision. Each stroke left a deep gash in the smooth, dark skin of the young boy, preceding the blood that followed.

Amongst the muffled sobs, stifled groans and wheezing coughs, young Olaudah Equiano stood out from the masses of dark bloody bodies. As each stroke of the whip met its target, his wistful eyes were fixed on the aimless shapes that the clouds made in the sky. His face was contorted with fury, pleading with desperation and writhing in pain. The brutal whipping and the unrelenting abuse empowered Olaudah to hold onto the last shreds of hope that he had left.

Hope.

Hope was extraneous to almost everyone else on board as they lay thinking about the countless hours that were still to come. The deck of the ship was filled to the brim with endless masses of dark bodies. Every person had been or was being whipped by an Oburoni- after all, it was the daily ritual. Olaudah frantically murmured under his breath the reason he was on board this ship.

"Mama"

It
He had the same dark skin and black curly hair that made them all uniform. But what set him apart from the rest was that he was hopeful- for this had been His Choice. When the Oburoni’s had left, he had not screamed or shrieked with pain like the rest, instead, he had cried. He had cried and cried until the tears refused to come; this way he knew that he was crying out of pain, not sorrow. He did not cover the gashes with the cloth, instead, he pressed hard onto the wounds making the blood flow out quicker. The blood reminded him of and symbolised what the Oburoni’s had taken from him- his