Character and Context in Equiano and Swift

The question of the relationship between character and context has been widely debated in the field of long eighteenth century literary/cultural studies with scholars such as Deidre Lynch arguing that in a culture of mass consumption, the belief in the interior life (of a character) assisted in perpetuating capitalism (context), and scholars such as Felicity Nussbaum arguing that a “range of anomalies” (including race) intermingle to define an individual’s state of “normalcy” (or context). It is important to acknowledge the issue of agency that individuals occupying a non-“normal” racial status, such as Black, had in determining their interior life, or “character,” and then projecting that “character” to the public, most likely through the assistive technology of writing. This essay addresses the issue of agency in defining one’s character and influencing one’s context—the dominant social structure itself—with special attention to factors of education and social class, which act on or define the individual, but which individuals had the potential to seek to exercise powers of self-determination. Conversely, this essay also addresses one major area in which individuals occupying a  “non-normal” status such as Black, displayed more willingness—or rather the necessity—to accept one’s own fate. Specifically in this essay, I will be looking at Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative and Johnathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal in order to show that while education and social status were areas open to Equiano and Swift for defining their own character, Swift’s Modest Proposal challenged the capitalist mindset—his and Equiano’s context—in a way that Equiano’s Interesting Narrative did not. I will discuss Swift’s and Equiano’s character development and their own public “character” and juxtapose them against their agency, in order to reveal the connection between character and race within the capitalist context of the eighteenth century. I argue that above all, these writers suggest the capacity of individuals to become the author of their own life was widely reduced to their socially—in the case of Equiano, brutally—enforced context. 

Individuals’ racial status determined the areas in which they could feasibly seek to exercise powers of self-determination. Equiano and Swift used education and writing to improve their social status or reputation. For Equiano, education improved his social status and reputation by freeing him from slavery and allowing him the ability to write and give speeches, asserting a powerful voice in strong, anti-slavery networks. Swift used his education in the classics to improve his social status by occupying dominant, literary and political networks and moving into his position as the leader of St. Patrick’s in Dublin. Unwilling to accept his own fate in terms of the dominant social structure in which his writing exerted a powerful role, Swift wrote as more of an “insider”–a position into which Equiano would write himself. In this way, Swift’s bold satire reveals the power differential between his and Equiano’s positionalities. Writing earlier than Equiano as well, Swift was able to challenge the sentiments that drove the dominant social structure. While Swift did not write with the explicit purpose to advocate for the end of the slave trade, in his “higher” positionality in the power structure, he was able to lampoon the capitalist mindset that would drive the slave trade, even to the extent of publicly comparing prominent politicians and economic speculators to cannibals. 

An individual’s racial status determined the areas in which he or she was willing–or in fact able–to accept or challenge his own fate. Equiano was more willing than Swift to accept his own fate in terms of his position within the capitalist structure that valued money over humans’ livelihood and ultimately, their lives. While Equiano had the power to advocate for the abolition of the slave trade, he did not advocate as did Swift for a shift in the capitalist mindset of profit that drove the slave trade to begin with. In his famous economical case for abolishing the slave trade, Equiano appeals to readers whose “noble minds” “covet” “a reversion … as a substantial good.” He advocates for not only the “cause of humanity [and] liberty” but also “good policy.” Like Swift’s modest proposer, he conceives his argument “to be a theory founded upon facts, and therefore an infallible one.” 

“If the blacks were permitted to remain in their own country, they would double themselves every fifteen years. In proportion to such increase will be the demand for manufactures. Cotton and indigo grow spontaneously in most parts of Africa; a consideration this of no small consequence to the manufacturing towns of Great Britain. It opens a most immense, glorious, and happy prospect – the clothing, &c. of a continent ten thousand miles in circumference, and immensely rich in productions of every denomination in return for manufactures.”

Equiano

Compare this “objective” “theory founded upon facts” to Swift’s modest proposer’s. After laying-out his “theory founded upon facts” the “Modest Proposal” ends with similar motives: “advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich” (Swift). Swift does not use the capitalist’s logic to attempt dismantle the capitalist’s house; he exposes the capitalist’s framework and rhetorically burns it to the ground. 

Individuals’ racial status determined, above all, their capacity to become the author of their own lives. This reading of Equiano and Swift ultimately reveals the freedom and limitation at the intersection of genre and race in the long eighteenth century. Equiano was able to write in the genre of spiritual autobiography, while Swift’s positionality as a prominent, educated, white, male author enabled him to write what is considered the boldest satire in the English language. Comparing Swift’s proposer/character’s satirical argument for, with Equiano’s economic argument against the harvesting of African individuals, this essay has shown how Swift, through satire, exerted his power to attack that which Equiano’s Interesting Narrative appears to have embraced: namely, what Cugoano termed the “thoughts and sentiments of the evil traffick of the human species.” While it would appear that Equiano through his Interesting Narrative supported the capitalist logic embraced by Swift’s amoral proposer, Equiano’s mentorship of the more radical Cugoano complicates this “narrative.” Equiano was a diplomat who negotiated on behalf of enslaved African individuals with agents of the Empire who exerted ultimate, genocidal control over the lives of the enslaved. Scholars have shown that he may have helped Cugoano write his Thoughts and Sentiments. While this essay’s purpose is not to show that Equiano consciously used Swift’s Modest Proposal to craft his economic argument against the slave trade, examining the similarities between Equiano’s public character’s and Swift’s public character/proposer’s logic exposes the capitalist logic within which both authors were working. In doing so, this essay has exposed the relationship between character and context in published prose writing in the long eighteenth century. Ultimately, this essay has shown that the capacity of individuals to become the author of their own life was widely reduced to their social context.