12 Years A Slave Thesis

A person’s world can change in a blink of an eye, especially for an African American in the 19th century. 12 Years A Slave tells a story about an African American, Solomon Northup, previously living in a comfortable and free life to being enslaved. The audience is shown the slave's perspective which is one that has been overlooked for several years. Solomon was a violinist from New York, and he was introduced to two men that were looking to “hire” him. The men took him out for dinner and then kidnapped him into slavery. During the time of slavery, slaves were mistreated and severely punished.

In the 19th century and in southern Louisiana it was common for slave owners to be wealthy and own plantations. In Mary Reynolds interview she stated

Sometimes it was for reasons only the master understood or for things that may have been out of the slaves control. The punishments had a wide range of effects from emotional to physical to physiological. Slaves were often viewed was nothing more than livestock and not as a human being. Owners usually thought this way because they purchased the salves just like they would livestock and consider both their property. Master Epps tells his hired help that “He might as well ask what’s the difference between a white man and a baboon” when talking about black and whites (12 Years A Slave, 1:44:07-1:44:09). The hired help was trying to get the master to see how awful the conditions are for slaves, but the master did not want to hear anything about it because the slaves are his

Before statehood there were major changes to black codes. In 1806 slaves could no longer complain about treatment nor purchase their freedom. Free people of color along with slaves also had changes to their laws. They could no longer have the same equalities as whites and obey all whites no matter what social class they belonged to (notes, 9/16/16). This made it extremely frustrating and difficult to be an African American at this time.

The film 12 Years A Slave has both similarities and differences from Mary Reynolds interview. In the film the slaves would attend Sunday mass along with singing, but in Reynolds interview things are not the same. She was not allowed to pray, and she did not know what church was. However, in both Reynolds’ interview and the film, when a slave died other were able to see him before he was buried. In both the slaves buried the dead on the same