Venture and Equiano

There were many differences and similarities in the stories about the two slaves, Venture Smith and Equiano. The main difference between the two would be the way each of then told their stories. Venture Smith sort of skipped over most of the bad things in his life and just focused on what life was like as a free man. He told stories of how he found his family and had to pay to get them. This was greatly different than the way that Equiano told his story. Equiano used just about every detail he could to show the reader just how horrible it was that a person would ever have to be put through what he got put through. As discussed earlier, a reason for this was probably because of who was telling each story. Equiano’s story was told by himself, which means that everything that he wants to convey he can make sure first hand that it’s added to his piece. Venture Smith on the other hand could not read and write. This means that his story was told by him but transcribed by what was probably a white man. The only reason that this could be a bad thing was that Venture Smith was trying to tell a story of how bad the white men treated him and the other slaves. If a white man if writing this story, chances are that he’s going to skip over the bad things that Venture would talk about and only talk about the parts that didn’t involve the white men. This is exactly how Venture’s story came out because he basically skipped over how horrible the boat ride was and most of the details on his kidnapping but kept in great detail everything that happened post slavery. In Equiano’s story, he talks about how horrible everything was using every detail he can to get the message across. His message was aimed at the white people who did this to him, which is probably why his message was more explicit. The endings of the two stories also differ greatly. In Venture’s story, he sets out and tries to buy his family back out of slavery and also some other slaves along the way. In Equiano’s story, we get the ending of him trying to abolish slavery all together. It seems as though Equiano’s has more value to it only because he just wants everyone to be equal, while Venture Smith is sort of buying into slavery when you think about it. He’s basically paying for people’s freedom, while Equiano is saying that people should just be free and that they shouldn’t have to buy their freedom from people.