Much like the master stylist Voltaire, in the Autobiografia, Manzano is a witty satirist employing many of the same conventions that Voltaire makes use of in his masterpiece Candide (6) Perhaps, even more than the social criticism seething from the text within the series of non-sequitors, hyperboles, and absurd situations, Manzano achieves clarity in his condemnation of slavery by portraying his own life as a glaring contradiction to the indulgent life of the plantation owner whose
whimsicalness made the young slave everything from a contented lapdog to a Christ-figure.