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The theme of slavery in 12 years a slave
Historical context of the film 12 years of slave
The theme of slavery in 12 years a slave
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Solomon’s Northup narrative, 12 Years a Slave is considered to be one of the best slave accounts written in history today. According to the author Ira Berlin, “few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northup’s tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement”. The novel can be seen by some readers as a direct response to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and was published in the year 1853; a time period where slavery was a subject many people avoided discussing. The novel ultimately details how Northup, who was born a free man, was kidnapped by two men who befriended him under false pretenses of employment and sold him into slavery. As a result of the previous, Northup persuades readers of the novel with a believable, heart-clenching account of his sufferings during his …show more content…
enslavement through the use of the rhetorical appeals: logos, ethos, and pathos.
The reading audience of Northup’s memoir is able to understand his convincing description of slavery when Northup establishing his logos. Northup begins the novel by addressing his status as a free man, stating that the purpose of his memoir is to “give a candid and truthful statement of facts without exaggeration” of his severe bondage as a slave. Because Northup establishes his purpose of his narrative to the readers of 12 Years a Slave, the audience is able to connect with his argument that the events he eloquently describes in the novel actually transpired. Therefore, the reader becomes persuaded because Northup leaves the story of his life for “others to determine”. Northup also establishes his logos by presenting evidence to the reader while describing is hardships as a slave.
One example is illustrated when Northup explains the process of growing and picking cotton: “A plough drawn by one mules run[s] along the top of the ridge or center of the bed, making the drill, into which a girl usually drops a seed, which she usually carries in a bad around her neck . . . This [process] is done in the months of March and April”. Since the novel gives accurate detail of the cotton picking process and of how the plantation owners alternate different crops during the seasons, the readers of the novel are engaged with Northup’s claims of enslavement because he provides details of the process only a plantation worker would know. Ultimately, because Northup establishes his purpose while writing his memoir and uses evidence to support his claims of slavery, the readers of the novel are persuaded into agreement that the accounts he describes are correct. In addition to the logos presented in the novel, the audience of 12 Years a Slave is also persuaded through Northup’s ethos. One example is demonstrated shortly after Northup’s introduces the reasons for his narrative; “My ancestors on the parental side were slaves . . . belong[-ing] to a family by the name of Northup. On the death of this gentleman, my father became free, having been emancipated by a direction of his will”. Since Northup provides such intimate details of his ancestry, readers become aware of his character as a trust-worthy individual with an education that most Blacks were forbidden to obtain. Northup’s credibility is also demonstrated to the reader as he recalls the events that transpired during his twelve year bondage. One instance is shown through the vivid descriptions of each character Northup meets throughout the narrative: “Edwin Epps. . . is a large, portly, heavy-bodied man with light hair, high cheek bones, and a Roman nose of extraordinary dimensions. His manners are repulsive and his language gives evidence that he has never enjoyed the advantages of an education”. Here, the descriptions of each person Northup encounters not only symbolizes the use of imagery to persuade the readers, but the details also symbolizes how people tend to remember every distinct detail of traumatic events that occur in their lives. Therefore, 12 Years a Slave allows the readers to connect to Northup’s experience on a personal level.
Douglass as both the author and narrator in his novel took readers through his escape from slavery. Specifically mentioned in chapter seven of the book, the author expressed his new skill of reading and how that inspired his freedom. Douglass utilized rhetorical devices in chapter seven, such as pathos and personification to illustrate to his audience how his education motivated him to achieve liberation. Douglass’ effective use of emotion throughout the chapter made his experiences appeal to readers. Also, the first and last sentences of chapter seven served as bookends to show how education influenced Douglass’ freedom because within those two phrases there was a portion of Douglass’ journey told on how he escaped salvation. Lastly, Douglass’
The hopeful and then helpless tones in Douglass' passage reflect his inner turmoil throughout the process of his escape from the wretched south. At first, Frederick Douglass feels the utter feeling of happiness covering every inch of his body and soul. However, he soon finds out that the rosy path has thorns that dug into his skin as freedom was dangled in front of his face through a tunnel of complete darkness.
The author Kevin Bales ,and co-writer Ron Soodalter, discuss the issues pertaining to forced labor in “Slavery in The Land of The Free”. Free The Slaves is a non-profit organization in Washington that Bales founded to help end slavery not only in the United States, but around the world. The Abraham Lincoln Institute has the honor to have the established historian, Soodalter, serve on it’s board.The two authors also wrote a book by the name of “The Slave Next Door: Human trafficking and Slavery in America Today” (2009). One of the issues that Bales and Soodalter effectively touch on is how widespread the issue of human trafficking and slavery is in
On January 23rd in 1794, the Right Reverend, Richard Allen issued a plea to White people, titled To Those Who Keep Slaves, and Approve the Practice. In his address to them, he is issuing a plea, basically stating that it is not right, nor humane, and it is time to put an end to it.
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
In order to convince, one must fist charm the inner feelings of the audience. In Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he appeals to the interest of the reader through his first hand accounts of slavery, his use of irony in these descriptions, and his balance between evasiveness and frankness.
In, “The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, readers get a first person perspective on slavery in the South before the Civil War. The author, Frederick Douglass, taught himself how to read and write, and was able to share his story to show the evils of slavery, not only in regard to the slaves, but with regard to masters, as well. Throughout Douglass’ autobiography, he shares his disgust with how slavery would corrupt people and change their whole entire persona. He uses ethos, logos, and pathos to help establish his credibility, and enlighten his readers about what changes needed to be made.
America in the mid to early nineteenth century saw the torture of many African Americans in slavery. Plantation owners did not care whether they were young or old, girl or boy, to them all slaves were there to work. One slave in particular, Frederick Douglass, documented his journey through slavery in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Through the use of various rhetorical devices and strategies, Douglass conveys the dehumanizing and corrupting effect of slavery, in order to show the overall need for American abolition. His use of devices such as parallelism, asyndeton, simile, antithesis, juxtaposition and use of irony, not only establish ethos but also show the negative effects of slavery on slaves, masters and
Booker T. Washington went down in history as one of the most influential African Americans of the nineteenth century. He was born into slavery on a tobacco plantation in Franklin County, VA. At the time of his birth, slavery ceased to exist in the most Northern States, abolitionists began to demonstrate and influence state governments pushing toward the emancipation and sometimes the relocation of former slaves and descendants (National Park Service, 2016). In his autobiography Up From Slavery, he describes in great detail his experience growing up on the plantation up until the day of his emancipation. He goes through the trying times of the civil war, and the impact it had on his master’s family. Throughout the biography you are able
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
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.
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:
The reader is first introduced to the idea of Douglass’s formation of identity outside the constraints of slavery before he or she even begins reading the narrative. By viewing the title page and reading the words “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by himself” the reader sees the advancement Douglass made from a dependent slave to an independent author (Stone 134). As a slave, he was forbidden a voice with which he might speak out against slavery. Furthermore, the traditional roles of slavery would have had him uneducated—unable to read and incapable of writing. However, by examining the full meaning of the title page, the reader is introduced to Douglass’s refusal to adhere to the slave role of uneducated and voiceless. Thus, even before reading the work, the reader knows that Douglass will show “how a slave was made a man” through “speaking out—the symbolic act of self-definition” (Stone 135).
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.
In Solomon Northup’s narrative, 12 years a slave, he shares a story of the horrors of his past that was a lifelong reality to many African Americans throughout American history. Northup, being a free man of Saratoga, New York, was stripped of his freedom and sold ‘down the river’ to the Bayou Boeuf of Louisiana and was bound to slavery for twelve years. Along with recounting the gruesome hardships and labor that he had to endure, Northup also gives detailed accounts of the lives of fellow slaves that he comes across, primarily, women. Northup’s narrative allows readers to see that the hardships that slave women experienced by far surpassed anything that a slave man could endure. Stripped of their families, beaten relentlessly and forever victims