Olaudah Equiano And Mary Rowlandson Essay

Narratives about captivity have often intrigued readers in Western culture. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano’s stories helped pave the way for stereotypes within both European and white culture; teaching Europeans to see Native Americans as cruel and allowing whites to see the evil in the American slave market. In both “A Narrative of the Captivity” and “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano share their individual stories of being kidnapped and enslaved. Though the two narrators share similarities in their personal accounts of being held captive, either individual’s reaction sheds light on the true purpose of both Rowlandson and Equiano’s writing.

In 1745, Olaudah Equiano was born in a small village in Isseke,Nigeria. His father was one of the chiefs in the village. At age eleven Equiano and his sister were kidnapped by two men and a woman never to see his home or parents again. After being kidnapped he was hiked across part of Africa untill he arrived at the coast where he was loaded onto a slave ship. While crossing the Atlantic to Barbados onboard the slave ship he and his countrymen were subject to horrors you could hardly imagine. Equiano tells about the horrors and torture slaves face not only on the slave ship but also on plantations and many other aspects of a slave's life. Equiano experienced almost all parts of a slave's existence. He was

In her writing titled “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, Mary lies out for the reader her experience of being held in captivity by Indians during the King Philip’s War. Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of this writing is the glimpse that the reader gets into Rowlandson’s faith and religion. Faith was a major aspect of life in the Colonial Period. It was of widespread belief that God was to be feared, and that he was the only way to redemption (Kizer). Mary Rowlandson was no different, but the extreme conditions of her captivity caused her faith to occasionally waiver. Most of the time throughout her journey in captivity, she depended on God, and the

Both Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were held captive at a time in their lives. White men captured Olaudah Equiano, while Mary Rowlandson had Indian captivators. Olaudah’s story tells of the time where he first saw the slave ship he was put on and the journey across great waters to the new world. Rowlandson’s story tells of the apathy of the Indians and her stay with the tribe. It is apparent that the journey across the sea was horrible enough for the ship’s passengers to commit suicide by jumping off of the ship rather than staying on board with the putrid smell of human wastes and lack of ventilation. In a brief paragraph, Equiano wrote of his daily routine before his captivity. He mentioned the relationship he had with his mother, and how he was her favorite child. "I became, of course, the greatest favorite with my mother and was always with her." (72) Olaudah and Mary were alike because Olaudah had a great relationship with his mother while Mary was fond of her own child in her narrative. "About two hours in the night, my sweet babe like a lamb departed this life; I must and could lie down next to my dead babe, side by side all the night after." (2) Neither Olaudah Equiano nor Mary Rowlandson ended their stories with the family members they were most fond of. Equiano’s captivity was the reason why he was stripped from his mother while Rowlandson’s baby died during her

In the story “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” written by Mary Rowlandson herself, we read that she is taken captive by a group of Indians. Rowlandson was torn away from husband, children, and town. Everything she had ever known was taken away from her in an instant and she was taken to unfamiliar territory with her youngest daughter in tow. If being took captive wasn’t

Mary Rowlandson, William Bradford and Equiano all had their own views and beliefs on religion. During the period of the 16th and 17th century, people relied very heavily on the presence of God. For example, Mary Rowlandson and William Bradford were puritans. They were dependent upon God. Puritans believed that the Bible was God’s true law, and it provided them with a way of life. They would praise God with the positive attributes that comes in their life and acknowledge God with the sorrow and despair. Mary believed that it was an act of God that provided her with a bible, gave her the strength to resist tobacco, prevented her foot from getting wet in the cold water, which would play a part in her weakened body and gave her the resilience to

Although Equiano and Rowlandson are both faced by adversity, the hardships they both suffer from are just as equally different and similar to one another. Mary Rowlandson was a captive, of the Native Americans, who was accompanied by her injured daughter, Sarah. Similarly to Olaudah Equiano, who was accompanied by his sister, when they were both kidnapped. They were both faced with distress when their loved ones were separated from them. Rowlandson only had roughly about a week before her daughter, Sarah died. Her other two children, Joseph and Mary were separated from their mother during the settlement in the wilderness. Equiano was separated from his sister, when they were both

Mary Rowlandson was an American wife and mother who had experienced captivity for eleven dreadful weeks. Olaudah Equiano was an African American who wanted to break free from the chains of slavery. He eventually purchased his freedom after ten gruesome years. Both Rowlandson and Equiano inspired people from two different eras to never give up in insufferable situations. The stories themes are similar in that they both concern two individuals that accompany a female relative, experienced humility, and were sold against their will for financial gain. However, the methods of how they received their freedom were different, both maintained contrasting attitudes toward their captors, and possessed

Mary Rowlandson was held captive by the Wampanoag peoples. In this narrative she gives details on what happened to her while she was a prisoner for weeks. Mary was captured along with her three children, two of which she was separated from and the other one died in Mary’s arms on the ninth day. She then went and saw her ten year old, who, upon seeing her mother, broke down in tears resulting in them not being able to have much further contact. Her captors made her march along for miles until they reach a river that they crossed on canoes. Mary stays there a while sewing and knitting for some of the Native peoples living there. She then is given a knife in which she promptly returns to her master, who lets her go see her son. She gets lost in

The slave trade, yet horrific in it’s inhumanity, became an important aspect of the world’s economy during the eighteenth century. During a time when thousands of Africans were being traded for currency, Olaudah Equiano became one of countless children kidnapped and sold on the black market as a slave. Slavery existed centuries before the birth of Equiano (1745), but strengthened drastically due to an increasing demand for labor in the developing western hemisphere, especially in the Caribbean and Carolinas. Through illogical justification, slave trading became a powerful facet of commerce, regardless of its deliberate mistreatment of human beings by other human beings. Olaudah Equiano was able to overcome this intense

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson reveals that the ghastly depiction of the Indian religion (or what Rowlandson perceives as a lack of religion) in the narrative is directly related to the ideologies of her Puritan upbringing. Furthermore, Rowlandson's experiences in captivity and encounter with the new, or "Other" religion of the Indians cause her rethink, and question her past; her experiences do not however cause her to redirect her life or change her ideals in any way.

When Mary Rowlandson, was capture she was injured by the Indian. Although she survive that wound but her daughter die. The Indians were so brutal “Barbarous creature, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies” (259). In this case Rowlandson was in pain for the loss at the same was badly treated by the Indians. Another heroic incident is when the Indians attack a small village during

Mary Rowlandson and Ouladah Equiano’s experiences did show some similarities due to the fact that they were both kidnapped, lost some of their family members, and witnessed terrible things. This demonstrates that they both encountered some similarities but besides those things their aims of narrative and the way they portray their life and story differentiate in multiple ways. For instance, in Mary Rowlandson’s text she describes her life through an everyday basis separating them into removes, portraying her own experiences and the lifestyle of the natives, until her husband paid her ransom. Ouladah Equiano talks about his life in general, informing us of the troubles he encountered since the day

One way her experience was so different compared to James Smith’s was, Mary had to watch her children and other family be viciously killed, while Smith was just integrated into the Native American society. The way her gender affected her treatment with the Indians was evident all throughout the time she was imprisoned with them. For one, since she was a woman, she was expected to be the head of the house and tend to the chores in the Puritan world. But while she was with the Natives, Rowlandson had to knit every single piece of clothing someone wanted and expect nothing in return. Because even if she ended up with a form of payment, it was usually stolen by someone else. She also had to carry extremely heavy loads while she had an open wound in her side, on top of having little rest. Everything Mary did during this time was nothing to be expected of a housewife at this time, especially having to watch her 6 year old daughter die of a gunshot wound because the Natives would not let her stop and tend to the wound. Instead, when her child died, the Natives took the child and just simply buried the daughter on top of some random

The Pressure to Assimilate in Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson