The Irony of the Slavery Ship
The paradox of the ship transporting the enslaved people from Africa to America is dominant in the text. The caustic satire is that the enslaved people who arrived alive in America were much less than when they started the journey. Therefore, many enslaved people were killed on the way and thrown into the ocean, which depicts the inhumanness of the slave traders and the crew.
The satire of Atiba
Atiba is depicted as the trickiest enslaved person who was the last to be sold. The satire is that when Atiba is sold to a white couple, he kills them. The white people in the text are portrayed as superior. Ironically, Atiba kills his masters and proved that the black people were not happy with their white counterparts.
The irony of material goods
When the enslaved people arrived in America, they were paraded as material goods in the open markets. The unsold slaves were chained and returned to the ships where they were mistreated and died. The irony is that the slave traders consider enslaved people as material goods, yet they allow such precious commodities to perish when subjected to mistreatment and torture.
The irony of racism
The aspect of treating a fellow human being as inferior by all standards is darkly satirical. The whites commercialized the blacks as goods of trade, not realizing that they resembled them in all aspects. Simply because of the whiteness of skin, American slave traders thought they were demigods who wanted to be worshipped by the blacks.
