In this paper the short story by Olaudah Equiano Life of Olaudah Equiano and The Journal of Christopher Columbus by Christopher Columbus will be compared. I will go over various points such as descriptive details, emotional appeal, and word choice to find what the author's purpose is in these two different narratives. First I will analyze emotional appeal. The two narratives have different cover pictures, while these are not words they do give impressions. While Equiano's narrative shows the terrible conditions that he and his fellow Africans had to endure on the ship, Columbus’s journal has a very different cover. As opposed to Equiano's picture, Columbus’s journal shows he and his crew landing on an island in the Caribbean claiming land for spain triumphantly. This obviously shows two very different objectives in the stories. Emotion can be effected with the words we use as well, in Equiano's narrative there is an …show more content…
Equiano in the page (45) uses very vivid description to show what is being done to him and his people. He uses words such as “loathsome” and “pestilential” to describe what horrid conditions they were forced to exist in. Unlike Equiano, Columbus spends most of his time describing the expensiveness of the lumber and various fruits. For example, Columbus describes “This island exceeds the others in beauty and fertility” (62). Simply stated, this is much different from Equiano's descriptions. Another of Equiano’s descriptions is of a sailor who took pity on him and his curiosity. The nearest similarity in Columbus's journal is his run in with the natives. Columbus tells of them sharing with him to fulfill his curiosity about the various other islands around the caribbean. These descriptions have once again shown what is important to the authors to Columbus it is the funding that he thinks he should receive, and to Equiano it is help for him and his enslaved