The Slave Dancer Analysis

Comparison and contrast are literary devices often times used to compare different or similar literary works, making a comparison is when you simply associate two or more literary works and show similarities, Contrasting is when you emphasize the differences between two or more literary works. For example, The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano and The Slave Dancer contain plenty of similarities and differences throughout the plot of the stories. The Slave Dancer is about a young boy Jessie, who lives in poor area of New Orleans with his widowed mother and younger sister. Jessie often plays his fife to sailors, to make a few pennies. The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano is about a young boy who lives in a village in Africa, with his father, mother,
In The Slave Dancer, Jessie’s mother asks him to go fetch some candles from his aunt’s house, so she can stay up late to sew on a dress that she has been rushing to make, however on the way home from his errand, Jessie took the long way home and runs into two sailors he had previously played his fife for. On the slave ship called The Moonlight, Jessie becomes gradually sick of being on the ship, he believes that it is wrong to treat the slaves like they did on the ship, but understands that eventually the ship arrives off the coast of Africa, and the captain goes out deals with the African chiefs he can't talk to any of the crew about this. When the slaves arrive, two of them pass away, and they are dumped over the side of the boat, then a little girl also dies and is disposed of in the same matter. The sailors notice that Jessie is disturbed, and his punishment is to be observed by one of the slaves, who was a young boy about the same age as Jessie. An unspoken bond forms between Jessie and the young slave boy, even though they don't speak the same language. In The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, while Olaudah’s parents went to work, Olaudah and his sister typically played with many of the neighbor’s kids, one day he had saw a kidnapper and warned his friend, unfortunately he is inevitably taken on another day, while
In The Slave Dance, Jessie returns home after voyaging on the slave ship The Moonlight. He no longer wishes to be a rich man because he does not want to contribute in any way to the slave trade. Instead, Jesse moves north to Rhode Island and avoids music for the rest of his life, trying to escape the reminder of the dancing slaves. In The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, amazed by the new country and its houses and horses, Olaudah realizes that he is far from Africa. Olaudah is sold once again and is brought to an apartment to which he hears men preaching and questioning the morals of the Christian men who sold them into slavery. In both stories the resolution is not a happy ending, while Olaudah still being a slave who will now presumably be forced into labor, however Jesse may be happy from now being free from the voyage, but not necessarily free from his memories of the dancing slaves, which will enslave him for the rest of his life.
In Conclusion, The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano and The Slave Dancer, are similar literary pieces written about the same time period, who of course have their fair share of differences. Jessie and Olaudah are both young boys kidnapped from their home to be put aboard a slave ship. However, one setting takes place in New Orleans and the other on the coast of Africa, one boy is white and the other is black, one boy is taken to be a slave and the other is