The Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano Or Gustavus Vassa Analysis

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The Culture of Taste versus the Slave
The English Elite and, at a larger scale, the European Elite prided themselves on having a culture of taste only they possessed. But, this taste was displayed in opulent and expensive possessions that the lower classes obviously would not be able to purchase. This culture of taste was premised on the marginalisation and othering of other groups especially the black slaves. From this culture of taste stemmed an important and deeply entrenched division between Englishness, and slavery. Besides their best efforts, they could not separate the two as they are intertwined and mutually dependant. I have come to the conclusion that this culture of taste was based on the othering of other people; the English creole …show more content…

The title, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, shows a more explicit marriage between his two identities: Olaudah the free “English” man and Gustavus, the slave. Even though he seems dedicated to his English identity and although he tries to marry Englishness and slavery, Equiano also separates them. “Did [he] consider himself to be European, [he] might say that [his] sufferings were great” (Equiano, 1789, p. 2). Here he shows that although he engages and fully endorses the marriage of slavery and Englishness, or Europeaness, the two identities will never come to understand life in the same way although they rely on each other, Englishness more so on slavery than the other way around. They are so starkly different, the experiences the slaves went though were extremely grave, their living conditions and the way they were treated by whites was inhumane; even the basest of European society lived in better conditions than most if not all slaves. To Equiano, the things that he went through were not that bad when compared to another slave’s experience. One could say that the man was extremely lucky when comparing his experience to another slave’s. But when compared to a European “his sufferings were great.” Despite this, an attempt at the marriage of slavery and Englishness or Europeanness is not impossible. And it is this possible union that Equiano attempts to show in his

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