Narrative Of The Captivity And Restoration And Olaudah Equiano

In reading, the exceedingly moving texts of Mary Rowlandson’s a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration and Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano’s I cannot but become on how both share their individual stories of not only being enslaved but being kidnapped and how horrific it was to experience it. Mary White Rowlandson was a Puritan Goodwife mother of three who was taken during an Indian raid in her town in 1675. Equiano was an 11 year old boy African boy who was taken from his home by slave traders in 1756. She spent eleven weeks among the tribe, functioning both as a valuable captive where she was eventually ransomed for twenty pounds and was a slave to one of the leading women of the tribe. While

She was forced to eat things that no human should have to endure. She was being treated like a slave by the England Indians. As for Equiano’s story he as well has a rough time through his journey, and is forced to change his ethnic ways. Rowlandson’s attitude as changed a lot throughout the whole story. She actually tends to become very droopy because she starts talking about death all of sudden. As said here, "That night they made me go out of the Wigwam again: my Mistrisses Papoos was sick, and it died that night, and there was one benefit in it, that there was more room." (pg) She is demonstrating while one might expect Mrs. Rowlandson to sympathize about the death of Wettimore's child, especially knowing that she has sympathy for other dying children while she was held captive and the recent death of her own daughter, she feels none. Instead she feels selfishly amused on some whole other level. Such a lack of sympathy could be due to prejudice against Native Americans, or simply due to her own callousness and how alone and mistreated she feels throughout the whole captivity. The only thing that kept her going was praying and reading the bible. Equiano and Rowlandson both have a spiritual being that kept them going throughout the whole story. Equiano suffered from a loss as well, he hated being away from home. When he was held captive the first thing he saw was a slave ship

Olaudah Equiano's captors were much crueler than Mary Rowlandson's had been. Mary Rowlandson was able to earn respect while Olaudah Equiano wasn't allowed food on the slave ship. When they were bought out of slavery, they wrote about their experiences for different purposes. Rowlandson wrote for spiritual purposes and Equiano wrote to change people's views on slavery. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were subjected to the humility and fear of slavery. Through learning and adapting to their surroundings they were able to survive. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano each wrote to teach others about slavery and how it relates to