8. How do the vivid details and extensive descriptions of the slave trade intensi-fy Equiano's message? Be thorough in your response; use textual examples and follow up with explanation.\
‘[The] vivid details and extensive descriptions’ were used to produce a picture, within the reader’s mind, of the realities of the slave trade. In the first chapter Equiano talks about his life before he and his sister were captured. The main difference between the children in this part of Africa and children in other parts of the world was the necessity for a look-out. “[Commonly] some of us used to get up a tree to look out for any assailant, or kidnapper, that might come upon us” (Equiano 690).
He told of being separated from his sister, not having anyone…show more content… “[The] poor creature was cruelly loaded with various kinds of iron machines; she had one particularly on her head, which locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak; and could not eat nor drink. I was much astonished and shocked at this contrivance, which I afterwards learned was called the iron muzzle.” (700)
The cruel treatment was not limited to the African slaves. In Chapter II, Equiano tells of a white man who was flogged with such a lack of mercy that he died and was thrown overboard (696).
Equiano was not the only slave to be separated from loved ones. When the slave ship arrived in the West Indies, the slaves were grouped without any consideration, “relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again.”
