Equiano's "Interesting Narrative": Identity, Conversion, and Freedom
Equiano's Complex Identity
Olaudah Equiano's self-perception evolved significantly throughout his life. Initially, he identified as African, reflecting his origins. However, later in life, he strongly asserted a British identity, even claiming British citizenship. This fluidity of identity is noteworthy, especially considering that the concept of a "hyphenated identity" (such as African-American) was still over years in the future. This historical context is vital for understanding various ethnic groups, including Mexican Americans or Asian Americans, for whom similar hyphenated terms would only emerge much later. Equiano's ability to navigate and claim these distinct identities highlights the complex social and political landscape of his era.
The Frontispiece: A Visual Declaration
The frontispiece to Equiano's narrative serves as a powerful visual declaration of his identity. In the era before photography, such an image aimed for absolute accuracy, presenting what was intended as an "indisputable African man." The portrayal deliberately avoids any attempt to soften his features or make him "pass" as European, emphasizing his African heritage directly.
Clothing and Class
Equiano is conspicuously depicted wearing "indisputable white colonial or at least 18th-century garments," presenting himself as a gentleman rather than a laborer or servant. This sartorial choice immediately communicates markers of his class and education to a contemporary audience. The deliberate discordance in the image, featuring a "gentleman's body and an African's head," is a conscious statement by Equiano, showcasing both his African lineage and his achieved status as an 18th-century British gentleman with all the associated class distinctions.
Symbolic Objects and Multifaceted Identity
Crucially, Equiano holds a book, which is clearly identifiable as the Bible. This detail signifies his literacy and his Christian faith. Therefore, the frontispiece simultaneously announces a multifaceted identity: he is African, educated, a member of the upper-middle class, a gentleman with property, literate, and Christian. Each element works in conjunction to convey a complex, carefully constructed self-image.
The Title Page: Textual Affirmation
The title of his autobiography, "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself," is significant for several reasons. It immediately highlights that direct authorship by a former enslaved person was an exceptionally rare and powerful act for the era, challenging prevailing notions of Black intellectual capacity.
Authorship and Dual Names
The inclusion of both "Olaudah Equiano" (his birth name) and "Gustavus Vassa" (the name bestowed upon him during enslavement, which he chose to retain) underscores a conscious claiming of multiple personalities and experiences within his singular being. This dual naming encapsulates his journey from freedom in Africa to enslavement and eventual self-liberation.
Biblical Allusion and Political Dimension
The Bible held by Equiano in the frontispiece is open to Acts . This specific passage, which speaks of salvation and individuals realizing their prejudices, adds a profound political dimension to his work. An 18th-century Christian readership would have readily recognized its implications regarding judgment, true understanding, and challenging false assumptions about others.
Font Emphasis and Collective Identity
Furthermore, Equiano's African name is presented in a distinct font, which serves to emphasize its importance and signals his enduring pride in his heritage. The phrase "the African" appended to his names suggests a third, collective layer of identity. While Olaudah Equiano and Gustavus Vassa represent his unique individual experiences, "the African" positions his story as representative of the broader transatlantic experience of enslaved Africans. It implies that his individual tale, while specific, also embodies the generic journey of displacement, enslavement, and the struggle for freedom shared by countless others. Later scholarship, emerging over the last years, suggests that Equiano may have been born in South Carolina, which, if true, means his detailed account of an African childhood and kidnapping might derive from the stories of other enslaved individuals, making his narrative of "the African" even more profoundly symbolic and collective.
Narrative Strategy: Comparing Equiano and Franklin
Equiano's narrative strategy, particularly in his preface, reveals a sophisticated understanding of his audience and autobiographical conventions, even as he navigates a vastly different social standing than his contemporaries like Benjamin Franklin.
Addressing the Readership
Equiano immediately addresses his readership, acknowledging their potential skepticism regarding his story and explicitly aiming for honesty. This approach contrasts sharply with Benjamin Franklin, who, already a well-established figure, adopted a more confident and less defensive tone, often viewing humility as a performative gesture rather than a necessity for credibility.
Framing the Narrative
Equiano uses his preface to vividly describe the beautiful life he lost in Africa, thereby framing his entire narrative as an account of what was tragically taken from him. This sets a powerful emotional and moral stake for the reader, inviting empathy and outrage.
Mastery of Autobiographical Form
Despite their differing social positions and individual circumstances, both Equiano and Franklin demonstrate a remarkable mastery of 18th-century autobiographical conventions, including the strategic declaration of humility. Equiano’s skilled deployment of this convention, while stemming from a need to establish credibility from a precarious social standing, profoundly showcases his sophisticated understanding of how to engage his audience and validate his narrative within the prevailing literary norms of his time.
Childhood and the "Fall"
Equiano portrays his early life in Africa in an idyllic, almost Edenic manner. He describes a childhood characterized by happiness, abundant play, vibrant dancing, music, and a deep sense of community and familial belonging. This "prelapsarian" (before the fall) description paints a picture of innocence and a harmonious world, strongly reminiscent of a paradise lost.
Edenic Life and Inherent Threat
Even within this seemingly perfect setting, the ever-present danger of kidnapping was a recognized reality. Children, including Equiano, would incorporate strategies like hiding into their innocent play, a chilling premonition of the eventual trauma.
The Trauma of Kidnapping
His and his sister's abrupt kidnapping marks the devastating "fall" from this innocent, Edenic state. This violent rupture forces him to confront a harsh new reality, shattering his world of security and belonging.
The "Removes" and Identity Dissolution
Similar to Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative model, Equiano's harrowing journey to the coast involves a series of "removes," each step taking him further from his home and systematically stripping him of his African identity. He is physically separated from his beloved sister, geographically from his community, and linguistically from his native tongue, as he encounters people speaking increasingly unfamiliar languages. This relentless process of dislocation compels him to begin the arduous task of recreating a new identity essential for his very survival.
Contrasting Interpretations of the Journey
While many contemporary European readers might have perceived his journey as a movement "towards civilization," Equiano experiences and articulates it from his original perspective as a profound descent into "savagery and alienness." This inversion of perspective is a critical element of his narrative strategy.
European Contact and Corruption
Upon reaching the coast, Equiano offers a distinct description of the Africans who lived there. He notes that these communities had regular and extensive contact with Europeans, and their customs differed significantly from his own people.
Description of Coastal Communities
He observes their divergent practices: circumcision, eating without handwashing, the use of iron pots, and the possession of European cutlasses and crossbows. He also points out their fighting with fists and describes the women as less modest, suggesting a deviation from his own cultural norms.
The Corrupting Influence
Equiano subtly suggests that the perceived "savagery" or altered customs of these coastal Africans stems directly from their sustained contact with Europeans. He implies that Africans without such contact, like his own people, remain pure, characterized by their love for dance, poetry, and music. In contrast, those exposed to European trade and culture become corrupted, embodying the very stereotypes Europeans often held about Africans, yet attributing the cause to European influence itself.
Inverting the Colonial Narrative
This observation represents a clever rhetorical move, brilliantly inverting the common narrative of the time. While narratives like Rowlandson's focused on finding humanity in Native Americans despite fear, Equiano suggests that European influence actually degrades African culture and morality, rather than civilizing it, thereby challenging colonial assumptions about progress and savagery.
The Slave Ship and "Astonishment"
Equiano's account of the slave ship, central to his narrative, is a graphic and harrowing depiction of the immense suffering endured during the Middle Passage, providing readers with an intimate and horrifying look into this transatlantic trauma.
The Horrors of the Middle Passage
His words convey the unimaginable physical and psychological torment, the overcrowding, disease, stench, and despair that characterized the journey, emphasizing the inhumanity inflicted upon enslaved Africans.
The Theme of Amazement
Throughout this deeply traumatic section, Equiano frequently employs words such as "amazed" and "astonishment" (pages , ). For instance, he recounts his surprise at phenomena like flying fish or his initial bewilderment at the use of a quadrant for navigation, mistakenly interpreting clouds as land. These moments highlight his fresh perspective as he encounters unfamiliar aspects of the European world.
The Multilayered Consciousness
These expressions of astonishment reveal the "multilayered consciousness" announced on the title page. In these instances, "The African" narrates the foundational story of home and initial capture, often drawing on collective ancestral experiences. Simultaneously, "Gustavus Vassa" represents the enslaved individual who, having spent a significant time in the company of white people and their technology, expresses curiosity and even a "perverse admiration" for European skills and tools. This portrays a mind actively acclimatizing and grappling with a new world, a complex process of reconciliation with an alien world and the adoption of its technologies and viewpoints, even while suffering its profound cruelties and striving for understanding.