Olaudah Equiano Language Analysis

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Olaudah Equiano was a writer from the American colonial period. In 1789, he wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, the first autobiography written by a black in America. His intended audience was free, white men and he used descriptive accounts of past hardships to persuade readers to oppose slavery. An example of Equiano’s descriptive language is in chapter two, where he recalls, “The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.” Throughout the entire book, Eluiano uses similar imagery combined with a first-person point of view to instill a feeling of sympathy and dread into his audience. This style helped to further his purpose of persuading America