MICHELLE JACKSON
I believe that the most important emotional knowledge communicated by the slave in this
passage was fear and anxiety. I believe this because when the slaves were captured and taking away
from the only life that they ever known, it had to have been very overwhelming. They didn’t have
anywhere to go and nowhere to run in fear of being lynched or whipped. Although they were aware of
the fact that kidnappers were on a prowl, who could ever imagine that it would happen to them. When
the time came to be taken into captivity and bought into another family to be treated as if they’re your
own, yet striped away from your own loved ones, had to be a scary felling not knowing what would
come next. There were different “levels” of Slavery. They were preparing them for the unimaginable.
Equiano felt fear and anxiety during most of his journey. One time when it was most felt was the
day he was feeding his masters chickens. He had thrown a rock at one of them that ending with its
death. The consequences were obvious to Equiano and therefor allowed his fear to take over. He knew
that as soon as his “master” found out what he had done, he might as well have been that chicken. He
decided to hide in a bush for the remainder of the day until his brain was able to plot out an escape.
Hearing talk of him not being able to make it home on foot by himself because of the wild animals and
the fact that it was too far, made it more difficult to figure out a plan. His anxiety began to kick in and
couldn’t figure out his next move. Equiano decided to wait it out until he ran out of ideas. The next best
thing for him to do was to return to the house and face the music. He waited until everyone was asleep
and crept back to hell. The oven was open so he made it his bed for the night with hopes that the other
slaves would not see him and turn it on in the morning while preparing “masters” breakfast and put an
end to his misery. Unfortunately, that was not the case. In this passage he said: “I was scarcely awake in
the morning, when the old woman slave, who was first up, came to light the fire, and saw me in the fire
place.”
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