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Summary of 12 years a slave
Summary of 12 years a slave
Review of 12 years a slave novel
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In my opinion, there are several reasons why Twelve Years a Slave is one of the most powerful weapons in the antislavery arsenal. When reading this story, I could not help but feel a huge amount of sympathy, guilt, and sadness for Solomon. I believe it was so powerful because of the great amount of information Solomon provided about his life before and after he was captured. At times I felt as if I was actually in the narrative. Before the character was captured, he expressed his life, the importance of his family, as well as the happiness he felt from succeeding in his career. I sensed as if I was almost getting a small glimpse of what it felt like to be in his shoes. I distinctly recall him talking about how much he adored his children, and how he loved being a father. In a way, I felt like this was his …show more content…
way of trying to reach out to other fathers. How would they feel if they were taken away from their children? I also feel like his daily life may have related in some ways to other individuals during that time, which may have also lead them to changing their outlook on slavery. From Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton’s uttermost fake acts of kindness, high paying wages, and extensive amount of lies, it proved to me how malicious these men really were.
As well as the amount of confidence and trust Solomon had in them, stating that they were his “friends”. When Solomon was captured, I got a great feel of how terrible it really was for him. He not only described how atrocious his surroundings were, but also gave great detail about his treatment from James H. Burch. The material provided about Burch calling Solomon cruel names, as well as denying him as a free man, may have altered the supporters thinking of this heinous atrocity. Not only did Burch deny Solomon was a free man, but he continued to beat him until he declared otherwise. The gruesome beatings Solomon endured must of had some effects on people’s views regarding slavery. In my opinion, if the information was too hard to even read, I cannot imagine how it must of made people feel. Solomon also expresses the severity of his wounds, as well as the slim amount of food he was fed. Would this really make others be in support of slavery after reading this? At least for me, it would
not. Another reason I think the story may have made an impact on others was the information Solomon provided about Eliza. He expresses how Eliza used to be a slave for Randall’s family, one of the men who worked with James Burch. Eliza and certain children were captured and brought into the same place as Solomon. His specific details about how Eliza loved the children so much might have been his attempt to reach out to the women who supported slavery. How would those who embraced slavery feel if their babies were taken away from them? It also was another example to show how cruel these men really were. With Solomon ending the narrative by mentioning how James H. Burch was a horrible man, I could not completely agree more. I hope the actions of the people in this story caused many slave supporters to rethink and even maybe change their mentality. There is so much power in this story. Although I was not around when slavery was happening, this definitely would have changed my outlook on it. I’m thankful that I was not living during the time when slavery was an every day of life. I can’t imagine being a child to a white family who owned slaves, having to witness this type of abuse.
Africans were brought to North America as slaves. This took place in Jamestown, Virginia in the early 1600’s.
Although a practice not viewed positively by all, slavery, a least in this document, could be justified in the eyes of slavers.
A staunch abolitionist, Douglass would take the country by storm through the power of his words and writings. His narrative was unique in regards to how it was written and the content it holds. Unlike most biographies of freed slaves, Douglass would write his own story and with his own words. His narrative would attempt to understand the effects slavery was having on not just the slaves, but the slaveholders as well. The success of his biography, however, did not rest on the amount of horror in it but from the unmistakable authenticity it provided. His narrative would compel his readers to take action with graphic accounts of the lashes slaves would receive as punishment, “the loude...
In the book “Escape from Slavery” by Francis Bok is about the life of Francis how he was able to leave Sudan. Later in his life he was able to come to America, and become an Activist. Throughout his life he survived many things such as living with Giemma. His life has changed since the day he was kidnapped from the market. Overall Francis transition from being a young innocent kid to a powerful activist, but he struggled to survive throughout his journey.
Frederick Douglas’s 1852 short story, “The Heroic Slave”, was loosely based the true story of a slave rebellion that occurred on the American ship named Creole. Divided into four parts, the plot of this story follows a slave named Madison Washington, who would eventually be the leader of the story. At the start of the short story, a “northern traveller” named Mr. Listwell saw and overheard Washington in a field. As Mr. Listwell observes him, Washington is performing a soliloquy, in which he verbalizes his wishes of gaining freedom (Douglass 174-182). In part two, Washington acts upon his grievances and finally escapes from bondage. Coincidentally, he arrives at the home of the same traveller who eavesdropped
Frederick Douglass, the author of the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, said “I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass, p.71). Modern people can fairly and easily understand the negative effects of slavery upon slave. People have the idea of slaves that they are not allow to learn which makes them unable to read and write and also they don’t have enough time to take a rest and recover their injuries. However, the negative effects upon slaveholder are less obvious to modern people. People usually think about the positive effects of slavery upon slaveholder, such as getting inexpensive labor. In the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass also shows modern readers some brutalizing impact upon the owner of the slaves. He talks about Thomas Auld and Edward Covey who are his masters and also talks about Sophia Auld who is his mistress. We will talk about those three characters in the book which will help us to find out if there were the negative influences upon the owner of the slaves or not. Also, we will talk about the power that the slaveholders got from controlling their slaves and the fear that the slaveholders maybe had to understand how they were changed.
The experiences that Richard Frethorne endured were in a lot of ways similar to those of James Revel. Both suffered from sickness and disease, lack of resources such as clothes and shelter, and most unfortunately limited access to food. The big distinction between these two, however, is that Frethorne was shipped to the New World on his own accord in hopes of a free and better life. While Revel was forcibly shipped as a felon, sent in punishment to serve his sentence in slavery.
“The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected”. This quote comes from Fredrick Douglas’ book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845. Fredrick Douglas who was born into slavery in 1818 had no understanding of freedom. However, his words shed light on the state of our country from the time he made this statement, but can be traced back fifty-eight years earlier to when the Constitution was drafted and debated over by fifty-five delegates in an attempt to create a document to found the laws of a new country upon. However, to eradicate the antiquated and barbaric system of slaver would be a bold step to set the nation apart, but it would take a strong argument and a courageous move by someone or a group to abolish what had enslaved thousands of innocent people within the borders of America for centuries. There was an opportunity for the law to be written within the Constitution, which would support this freedom Fredrick Douglas alluded to. However, the power, which controlled this law, would as Douglas stated, “make that law respected”.
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
This novel was a very long and strenuous read. Solomon included many details about the process of planting and harvesting cotton or the appearance of a man from head to foot, for example. This painted an extremely accurate picture in the reader’s head, however it made the story boring and slow. There were also a lot of old-fashioned words that I had to look up before I understood sentences. Although the novel was slow and old-fashioned, I would recommend this book to students who wished to learn more about this time period because it certainly helps certain aspects easier to comprehend. Twelve Years a Slave gave me a different perspective to slavery, and a different way of viewing it.
The "American Slavery" Book Review This book achieved its goal by reflecting on the past and history of American Slavery. We can see in much detail what America was and has become throughout the era of slavery. It was the Colonial era that America began to see what true slavery would soon become. The author, Peter Kolchin, tries to interpret the true history of slavery. He wants the readers to understand the depth to which the slaves lived under bondage.
In his true-life narrative "Twelve Years a Slave," Solomon Northup is a free man who is deceived into a situation that brings about his capture and ultimate misfortune to become a slave in the south. Solomon is a husband and father. Northup writes:
Imagine waking up before the sun rises feeling sore and unrested. You pull yourself together and start your daily duties with just seconds to spare before your master realizes you are late. As you begin your chores you cringe when you hear the crack of a whip followed by a sharp, painful scream from a fellow slave. You quickly distract yourself from wondering if there was a reason for the abuse or if it was "just because". The daily monotonous routine is taking its toll on your body as you stumble and accidentally break your master's tool. Overcome with fear you hide your mistake and continue your job. Hours later, still regretting your error you feel a hard blow to the back of your legs. Turning around you see your master yelling and swearing. You cover your face in shame and fear as you are beat until unable to move and covered in blood. Forced to finish your day's work every move you make is accompanied by agonizing pain. Finally, the day is drawing to a close and you stagger to your "bed". Closing your eyes you can feel your stomach turning in hunger and you pray that God will either give you the strength to continue or allow you to die. You finally doze off in a restless sleep only to wake up and to do it all over again. As awful and unrealistic as that sounds it was a reality for many slaves. Despite being harshly treated many slaves still had a positive and hopeful outlook on life.
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.
“A narrative begins with one situation and, through a series of linked transformations, end with a new situation that brings about the end of the narrative” (Gillespie, 2006, p. 81). The trailer for 12 Years a Slave does this. It begins with a Solomon getting captured and forced into slavery. He starts to accept his slavery in the beginning, but then as the trailer goes on, he changes his perspective and starts to regain hope and fight for his freedom. The events that knocked him down in the beginning start to make him stronger and start a fire in his heart that cannot be put out by the slave