The Coming Literary Elements

Novel

The novel is written in the context of slavery in America.

First-person narrative

Sad, hopeless, disturbing, horrifying

The protagonist of the story is the narrator.

The conflict is when the narrator and other African people are captured and imprisoned to be shipped to America as slaves. During the travel, the Africans in the ship are mistreated, raped and killed.

The climax is when the slave called Atiba murders a couple that bought him. Atiba is a trickster, and his actions mark the climax in this book, reminding readers that Africans had the power of revenge. Still, they only accepted humiliation and mistreatment because they were away from home.

Slavery in America was foreshadowed by the greediness of the white businessmen and the slave owners who did not value black human life.

The mistreatment of the blacks is understated. Besides being compressed and packaged in one room under the deck, the narrator reveals that many blacks were brutally murdered during the trip to America.

The story alludes to slavery and human suffering that blacks were subjected to during the days of the slave trade.

The imagery of smell is depicted when the narrator describes the room in which the slaves were contained below the deck. According to the narrator, the room was tiny smelly of human suffering. The imagery paints a clear picture for readers to see the narrator and fellow Africans' sufferings while travelling to America to be sold as slaves.

The main paradox is that when the ship carrying African slaves arrived in America, it had fewer slaves than when it started. The irony is that many of the slaves were mistreated and murdered during the journey. Therefore, the reader finds it sardonic that slave traders prefer making losses rather than tolerating carrying blacks in their ships.

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Slavery is a metonymy that refers to the presentation of black people as material goods in America.

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