English Language and Literature Commons^™

Moses And The Egyptian: Religious Authority In Olaudah Equiano's Iteresting Narrative, Eileen Razzari Elrod

English

From the first image that greeted readers of his book, Olaudah Equiano presented the self of his 1789 autobiographical narrative as a pious Christian, one whose religious conversion meant a kind of freedom as significant as his manumission from slavery. In the striking frontispiece portrait Equiano sits with biblical text in hand, insisting-in his visual as in his textual presentations of himself-that the Christianity he embraces is the defining feature of his life-story. He responds, as Susan Marren has suggested, to two paradoxical imperatives: one, to write himself into creation as a speaking subject and, two, to write an antislavery …