Olaudah Equiano Passage

The passage from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself is structured to humanize the African population being brought to the America’s. By positively depicting the image of black men and at the same time using negative diction to portray the image of white men, Equiano is able to challenge the ideals that black people are savages and instead questions who the real bad ones are. Equiano structures his passage by first introducing black people as helpless when he states, “poor chained men”. This is intentional because it instantly infers that the black people in the text are the victims. Equiano further uplifts the image of black people when he states, “ I found some of my nation,