Hammon's Captivity Narrative example essay topic

Type of genre and its importance by "Briton Hammon" Briton Hammon's captivity narrative was a well-recognized African American prose text that was published in North America. His life has been limited to the information that is within his narrative. While reading through his prose it is still undetermined as to whether he was a servant or a slave. In his narrative he has tried to explain a life of a man of African decent and how he gets along with the public sphere and made use of the opportunities he was given. Hammon mainly discussed the issue of his suffering while he was in captivity. In the introduction he explains him and other people were brought to the shore and were suddenly attack by sixty Native Americans, .".. but on advancing yet nearer, we found them, to our Surprise, to be Indians of which there were Sixty; being now so near them we could not possibly make our Escape". (pg 1005) He says as soon as they figured out who these people were it was already too late to escape.

He also says that all their arms and necessary items were taken away from them. While reading along his narrative, Hammon describes how these Indian caused an environment of terror among these people, and how he tried to escape from these savages and was once again trapped with them. Soon he escaped from these villains by getting aboard a Spanish schooner, later he was imprisoned again in a dungeon for four years in Spain because he refused to serve their ships. After escaping that imprisonment Hammon worked in Cuba, which lead to his opportunity to go back to London. As said before, Hammon's life is limited to the information contained within the narrative. He had spent thirteen years of his life in captivity.

Hammon's narrative is one of the best examples of genre. He chose to write a narrative so that his audience thoroughly understand the hardships that he went through while being an African decent and a captive. According to his writing he was liked were ever he went as a prisoner, which forced the Indians to request an appeal for his relief, .".. [the Captain] came to the Prison, and ask'd the Keeper if he might see me; upon his Request I was brought out of the Dungeon... intercede with the Governor for my Relief... and the next Day the Governor sent an order to release me". (pg 1006) Hammon had little reference to his race in this writing, the only place he referred to his race was when he said "A Negro Man, - Servant to General Winslow". (pg 1003) He emphasized more on this status than on his race, before calling the attention to his readers, Hammon made a point of letting his audience know that he was not a rich person but his condition of life were very low. Through out his writing he mentioned about his Master, even though he was a servant to his Master, after thirteen years of his absence when he comes back home his master is very pleased to see him alive, "My good Master was exceeding glade to see me" (pg 1008) Hammon only discussed important facts about his journey, which would help his reader understand the hardship he went through as being dark skin ed and a foreigner to the land. Eventhough he got paid for his work, it was not enough for him, at one point when he gets sick, by the time he got out of the bed he was left in very poor circumstances. He did not use a lot of metaphors in his work.

His writing was very simplistic and straight forward, which helped his audience to comprehend his writing.