Analysis Of 12 Years A Slave

1404 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How slavery affected american history

In 2013, McQueen1released his movie 12 Years a Slave, which was based on the life of a 19th-century slave Solomon Northup’s. Nonetheless, despite overwhelming response from the public, the movie has elicited trivial attention within academia and is not yet declared as a subject of critical scholarship. The movie presents accounts of common experience by slaves in the United States in the pre-Civil War era. It incorporates basic facts about peoples’ experience, the living conditions, and daily practices in an excessively detailed way. Northup’s details the abuse endured by the slaves ranging from beating, hanging and whipping. Notably, the core value of the movie 12 Years a Slave serves as a warning to all generations that slavery adversely affects all parties involved. While the slave suffers from physical, spiritual and …show more content…

12 Years a Slave is an indication power within human spirit and enduring hope. Notwithstanding the fact that Solomon Northup is kidnapped, beaten and denied his rights, he was still hopeful that one day he would become a free man. He was hopeful that if his friends in the North new about his ordeal will definitely come to his rescue. Ultimately, based on his testimony, it is indeed true that hope, faith and determination can lead to jubilation at the end. However, McQueen’s movie split fundamentally by attempting to create and replicate slaves’ trauma and violence through what is termed as “realistic images”. Framed by what is no there using realistic images, the movie 12 Years of a Slave portrays instability of representation and impossibly recreates lived ordeal of the slaves and their traumatization. In light to this, the paper endeavors to analyze paradoxical ambiguity on use of realist images in McQueen’s movie, 12 Years a Slave in representation of trauma and violence of slaves and prevailing discourses concerning the

Show More
Related

  • Unchained Memories Summary

    506 Words  | 2 Pages

    Of the given options of films to watch for the extra credit assignment, I chose to watch HBO’s documentary titled the Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives, a production I thought was excellently put together. I was initially apprehensive of the film, thinking it would be extremely boring, but I rather found it to be quite the accessible medium of history both available and appealing to a broad audience including myself. I found the readings of the many slave’s interviews and firsthand accounts to be such a clever way to understand more about the culture of slavery in an uncanted light and it broadened my knowledge of what slavery entailed. The credibility of this film finds its foundations cemented in the undeniable and indisputable

    Read More

  • 12 Years A Slave Freedom Quotes

    465 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Solomon Northup’s memoir, Twelve Years A Slave, he depicts the lives of African Americans living in the North as extremely painful and unjust. Additionally, they faced many hardships everyday of their lives. For one, they were stripped of their identities, loved ones, and most importantly their freedom. To illustrate this, Northup says, “He denied that I was free, and with an emphatic oath, declared that I came from Georgia” (20). This quote discusses the point in which Northup was kidnapped, and how he was ultimately robbed of his freedom, as well as his identity. Furthermore, not only were his captors cruel and repulsive, so was the way in which they treated African Americans. For instance, Northup states, “…Freeman, out of patience, tore Emily from her mother by main force, the two clinging to each other with all their might” (50). In this example, a mother is being parted from her child despite her cries and supplications, the slave owner

    Read More

  • Slave Life In The Antebellum South Analysis

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    1. The insight that each of these sources offers into slave life in the antebellum South is how slaves lived, worked, and were treated by their masters. The narratives talk about their nature of work, culture, and family in their passages. For example, in Solomon Northup 's passage he describes how he worked in the cotton field. Northup said that "An ordinary day 's work is considered two hundred pounds. A slave who is accustomed to picking, is punished, if he or she brings less quantity than that," (214). Northup explains how much cotton slaves had to bring from the cotton field and if a slave brought less or more weight than their previous weight ins then the slave is whipped because they were either slacking or have no been working to their

    Read More

  • Solomon Northup: A Journey from Freedom to Slavery

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    Twelve years a slave is the title of a book and a movie which was an adaptation of the life of Solomon Northup. Solomon Northup was born in New York a free man. He had a wife and three children, he unlike most other children was educated.”Besides giving us an education surpassing that ordinarily bestowed to the children in our condition” he said page 25, he had a farm and worked as a violinist. He was drugged, abducted and sold into slavery in 1841 while on a visit to Washington, sold at auction and shipped to work in cotton plantations in Louisiana. He was given a new identity and his slave name was “Platt.” he never accepted being

    Read More

  • Analysis Of A Slave No More

    990 Words  | 2 Pages

    “A Slave no More”, is a book that examines the American slaves in the wake of the Civil War. David Blight who is the author illustrates the stories of two men; John Washington and Wallace Turnage who both served as slaves in the pre-emancipation period in America. According to Blight, Washington escaped from the town of Fredericksburg while at the age of twenty-four and was able to enter the Union army in the period of 1862 (Blight, 2007: p. 1).

    Read More

  • What did freedom mean to harriet jacobs

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...

    Read More

  • Extreme Violence In Solomon Northup's Story, 12 Years A Slave

    356 Words  | 1 Pages

    Extreme violence is central in Northup’s story, 12 Years a Slave; he emphasizes that the slave owner’s authority was controlled by terrorizing slaves they owned with powering violence. Nailed to the floor, Northup experienced painful activities to his naked body after he awoke in a slave pen; his enslavers paused only to ask for him to accept his new status

    Read More

  • A Slave In Form By Frederick Douglass Analysis

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    A “slave in form” refers to Douglass’ legal status of being a slave. A “slave in fact” refers to the lack of pride and self-determination he possesses as a human being. This dichotomy develops throughout the novel. At first, Douglass is not only physically shackled by slavery but emotionally limited because of this self-identity. As the novel progresses, Douglass goes through a striking transformation: over time, he begins to see himself as a free-standing human being, despite remaining a” slave in form.” Although there is an obvious turning point, this happened over time. Douglass displayed true freedom of thought at a young age when, despite his master’s protests, he decided he wanted to learn to read. Later, reading leads to understanding and allows him to help the abolitionist cause. By exercising the individuality necessary to go against one’s master’s wishes, Douglass inadvertently began the long journey towards true autonomy.

    Read More

  • Slavery By Another Name Essay

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    The film “Slavery by another name" is a one and a half hour documentary produced by Catherine Allan and directed by Sam Pollard, and it was first showcased by Sundance Film Festival in 2012. The film is based on Douglas Blackmonbook Slavery by Another Name, and the plot of the film revolves around the history and life of African Americans after Emancipation Proclamation; which was effected by President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, for the purpose of ending slavery of African Americans in the U.S. The film reveals very brutal stories of how slavery of African Americans persisted in through forced labor and cruelty; especially in the American south which continued until the beginning of World War II. The film brings to light one of my upbringing

    Read More

  • Slavery’s Dehumanizing Effects on American Slaves and Slaveholders

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.

    Read More

  • Slavery Synthesis Essay

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    When one thinks of slavery, they may consider chains holding captives, beaten into submission, and forced to work indefinitely for no money. The other thing that often comes to mind? Stereotypical African slaves, shipped to America in the seventeenth century. The kind of slavery that was outlawed by the 18th amendment, nearly a century and a half ago. As author of Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People, Kevin Bales, states, the stereotypes surrounding slavery often confuse and blur the reality of slavery. Although slavery surely consists of physical chains, beatings, and forced labor, there is much more depth to the issue, making slavery much more complex today than ever before.

    Read More

  • Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

    1673 Words  | 4 Pages

    The topic of slavery in the United States has always been controversial, as many people living in the South were supportive of it and many people living in the North were against it. Even though it was abolished by the Civil War before the start of the 20th century, there are still different views on the subject today. Written in 1853, the book Twelve Years a Slave is a first person account of what it was like for Solomon Northup to be taken captive from his free life in the North and sold to a plantation as a slave in the South, and his struggle to regain his freedom. Through writing about themes of namelessness, inhumanity, suffering, distrust, defiance, and the desire for freedom, Northup was able to expose the experiences and realities of slavery.

    Read More

  • 12 Years a Slave

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.

    Read More

  • Mental Abuse In Frederick Douglass Narrative

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    When discussing the topic of slavery oftentimes the reality of the trauma which took place is not fully understood due to the audience’s inability to relate. However, the most effectual means for one to convey the true extent of oppression is through accurate and compelling firsthand descriptions. Frederick Douglass thoroughly accomplishes this by transparently exposing his personal experience as a slave in his book titled “Narrative.” From being separated from his mother at birth to outsmarting his slave master into allowing him to teach fellow slaves to read, Douglass’ perspective provides an in depth look into life as a slave. Certainly, anyone with any knowledge of American slavery is familiar with the aspect of physical abuse because it

    Read More

  • Narrative Analysis Of Trailer In 12 Years A Slave

    2297 Words  | 5 Pages

    12 Years a Slave is a very iconic movie about Solomon Northrup and his being kidnapped into slavery. Northrup was a free man, a professional violinist, and a farmer. After being drugged, he was shipped away from his family and forced to work in New Orleans. During his slavery, he was forced to pick cotton and endure many hardships for 12 years. Eventually, he was freed and returned to his family. The people who captured and enslaved him served no punishment for their crimes since blacks were not allowed to sue white people at that time. Solomon was stripped of all his rights not only as a human, but also as an American and was illegally put into slavery for 12 years.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of 12 Years A Slave

Open Document