Comparison and Contrast Between Oludah Equiano and Benjamin Franklin

It is interesting to always read about how people live their lives and how they happen to think of themselves. In reading literary texts there are two people who come to mind when speaking about autobiographies and their portrayals of self, and they are Benjamin Franklin and Oludah Eqiano. Here are two men who added new processes of thought and ways of looking at things that many people see as a constructive way of viewing literature and people. However, as similar as they are, they are both phenomenally different from their backgrounds and where they come from.

Both Ben Franklin and Equiano are men who made themselves popular and had their ideas published for the world to see. And more importantly, they are self-made men who looked upon themselves for the achievement of their goals.

Equiano was a slave whose place of birth is still questioned but the fact remains that he made someone of himself even though he was a slave. He was a sailor for years saving money to buy his own freedom, during this time he saw many things that affected him very dearly and made his thinking about freedom nearly vanish at times. Yet, here was a man who had to prove he was a man and not a piece of property to the world so that they could understand him. When he wrote his autobiography it was more than just a story of his life it was also a spiritual autobiography. There are times within it when he speaks of theology and compares Christianity to Judaism and both to his own culture and religion in Africa.

Equiano is someone who even though he was on a ship working as a sailor he took the time to learn the ways of the world and helped make himself stronger. Through his travels he shows that he is a cosmopolitan or citizen of the world thus showing the readers and the outside world that he is not an ignorant savage or a piece of property as the times may have defined him.