Social Isolation In The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Eq

Olaudah Equiano in his Interesting Narrative is taken from his African home and impel into a Western world completely foreign to him. Equiano is a hard worker for a total of ten eld and endeavors to take on certain traits and customs of Western thinking. He takes great pains to improve himself, control religion, and adopt Western mercantilism. However, Equiano holds on to a great deal of his African heritage. Throughout the narrative, the author keeps his African innocence and purity of intent devil qualities he finds sorely lacking in the Europeans. This compromise leaves him in a volatile philia ground amidst his adapted West and his autochthonal Africa. Olaudah Equiano takes on Western ideals while keeping several of his African determine this makes him a man associated with two cultures but a member of neither. Olaudah Equiano during his ample journey is exposed to Western ideas and customs. Although he is initially frightened by them, writing and I was n ow persuaded that I had gotten into a world of big(p) spirits, and that they were go to kill me (755), he eventually begins to see Europeans as work force superior to us (762). In this change of perceptive Equiano begins to endeavor to simulate his more pale counterparts. To further this cause, he begins to improve himself through education. He embarks on a quest to read and write having already part learned his adopted tongue some two to three years after he arrives in England. He is put into school by Miss Guerins while his masters ship is in port and while in her service Equiano is taught Western Christianity and baptized. He thus begins to take on the European religious character as well as the new nirvana ideal of self-improvement. During Equianos service... ...other leaving him somewhere betwixt both.Olaudah Equianos Interesting Narrative provides perspicacity into cultural assimilation and the difficulties such assimilation. The writer embraces several Western tr aits and ideals moreover guards his African virtues jealously. In doing so however, he finds himself somewhere in between a full European and a displaced African. This problem of cultural individuality Equiano struggled with is still present in modern American society. The modern twenty-four hours African-American appears to also be in the process of deciding the between two competing cultures and often being left somewhere in middle becoming a victim of cultural identity just corresponding Olaudah Equiano some 250 years ago.Works CitedOlaudah, Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Yassa, Written by Himself. New York St. Martins Press, 1995.