Olaudah Equiano

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The consensus of the people of the 18th century and Denis Diderot's encyclopedia defined savages as "Barbarous people who live without law, without governance, without religion, and who have no fixed habitation" making them ignorant to the world around them. The term, savages, was commonly associated with Africans especially during the slave trade. The definition influenced published works of the time period with many works depicted the Africans as savages and inferior to the Europeans. An example of a piece of literature that did not depict Africans in this manner was Equiano's 1789 autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. The author was a former slave recalling his experiences in the slave and in the process …show more content…

The author flips around the accusation that Africans were ignorant by offering his personal take on the issue. He states that "when they (Africans) come among Europeans, they are ignorant of their language, religion, manners, and customs" (Equiano 86). During his time as a slave, Equiano picked up the English language and some mannerism of the whites. However, in actuality it would make no difference if Equiano adopted every aspect of white culture because he still would have been viewed as inferior and worthless based just on the color of his skin and country of originated. When it came to race and worth, the Europeans developed a mindset that it was their way or the highway, which sparked their superiority complex. When Africans like Equiano encountered white culture for the first time they were fascinated with their customs and interactions. However, the situation is completely opposite when it involves a white being introduced to African culture where the whites see the culture as different and instinctively positions it below their culture without taking any interest in learning anything new about the world and thus making them …show more content…

Gulliver's master took a fascination with the cultures of Europe and often asked Gulliver of things that occurred in his land that did not take placed among the Houyhnhnms. During one of the conversations, the subject of war and the mean of it ensued in which Gulliver described instances where rulers might go to war to display power over weaker nations, a matter of difference in opinions, or that a ruler thirst for new lands and resources. When Gulliver started to talk about the weapons and damages of war, his master silenced him and said, "whoever understood the nature of Yahoos might easily believe it possible for so vile an animal, to be capable of every action I had named, if their strength and cunning equaled their malice" (Swift 285). Gulliver had to escape European culture to really get an in-depth perspective of what was actually going on in his homeland. He realized that the majority of reasons wars were conducted was to benefit the ruler of nations or provoke fear into subjects lower on the social ladder. Gulliver came to terms that war is a brutal act that humans invented and partake in to prove their dominance over other people which is eerily similar to what the Europeans have down to the Africans during the time

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