The Milgram Experiment

The Milgram Experiment was designed after World War I, to test how obedient people are to authority figures. The study tested (by fake electrical shock) showed how likely people were to commit 'crimes' based on what they were told to do, by someone whom they believed to be an authority figure. The study found that ordinary people have a natural obedience towards authority figures because of how people are raised to listen to their parents, grandparents, teachers, ext. Therefore they are more likely to commit an act against their own values when told/pressured to do so from an authority figure.
This experiment relates back to The Book of Nigroes because there are many people in the book who do what their told because someone from a higher power told them to do so. The first example we see in the text are the capturers. Are they really bad people? Why are they taking other people aways from their homes? Do they care what happens to them? The questions we may ask, could go on forever. In reality they could just be fallowing the orders they were giving, even if it goes against their own morals.  This relates to the Milgram Experiment after World War I, to test if the Nazi's were truly guilty of their crimes or wether they were forced/pressured to go against their  own values by an authority figure.

And My Story Waits Like a Restful Beast

"This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating." Says an old Aminata Diallo, as she listens to the abolitionist's talk of her story as one of "virtue," she knows she cannot talk about the slave trade without condemning slavery. This makes the story like a 'beast' or a lion, so commonly referred to in the novel. Aminata's character uses many simile's to compare things of impact with the lion. For example, she talks about the mountains in her homeland being like a lion, then goes on to say that the slave ship is like a lion whom had already rampaged through the village and now they were being taken straight into its anus.
In this chapter Aminata is looking back on her life and introducing us to the abolitionist, talking about their views on the matter, and the gifts they bring her, and how they treat her so fragile. My favorite quote in this chapter is at the end when Aminata says, " If I live long enough to finish this story, it will out live me... Sometimes I imagine the first reader to come upon my story. Could it be a girl? Perhaps a woman. A man. An Englishman. An African. One of these people will find my story and pass it along. And then, I believe, I will have lived for a reason."