"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."
No comments:
Post a Comment