Journal #12 Olaudah Equiano: Freedom Over The Zombie Life

QUOTE:

“This speech seemed to confound him, he began to recoil, and my heart that instant sunk within me. ‘What,’ said he, ‘give you your freedom? Why, where did you get the money’…and said he would not have made me the promise he did if he had thought I should have got the money so soon” (Equiano 707).


SUMMARY:

Equiano’s master tries to take back his promise since he didn’t expect Equiano to get the money to buy his freedom. Luckily Equiano’s friend helps oblige his master into letting Equiano buy his freedom.


RESPONSE:

When I pointed out this passage in class, I said that Equiano was quite lucky to have made friends with the captain. The captain basically makes Equiano’s master feel obligated to accept the money from Equiano in exchange for his freedom. However, the question of whether Equiano was, in fact, better off free came up in class. Were newly freed slaves actually living happier lives? Or did they find life much harder without even the minimal sustenance they would at least receive as slaves?

I think that even living a “harder” life as a free man or woman would still be greatly preferred to living in a state of servitude by basically every African. I guess I see this in a kind of unusual way, because in class I related this matter to all of the “zombie” movies I have recently seen: i.e. Resident Evil I, II, III or 28 Days Later. The characters in these movies would much rather die and stay dead, than end up one of the “undead” forever. I think that being “free” is an ambition equivalent to not being a mindless zombie, and is something that most of the Africans will even die for.

Although in Equiano’s life he writes about certain masters that seem to be at least “nice,” he’s still a slave, and still has to work for nothing. He still knows that he has no choice, and that he has to do whatever his master asks. As a slave, Equiano or any human, is a zombie with no choice in what they do if they want to survive. The slaves must work until it kills them, and the zombies must feed on human flesh/brains until a protagonist kills them. Maybe it's a stretch, but this comparison makes sense in my brain!