The film, “12 Years A Slave” tells an eye opening, very illustrative story of how slavery in the states was a cruel and sickening part of American history. The story follows a once free black man named Solomon Northup, a successful violinist with a family living in the north who gets abducted and forced into the slave trade then sold at an auction. The events that happen throughout the movie elaborate the brutality of slavery on blacks, it shows the effects of slavery on them and also the slave owners, and lastly it depicts how women both black and white were subject to authoritative treatment. “12 Years A Slave” can be analyzed in serveral different ways including several different topics. It shows of course how awful the treatment of …show more content…
Solomon did not respond. Master Ford, who is the owner of the plantation, proceeds to say he is impressed with Solomons intellect on the situation. The white slave owners sarcastically compared him to a engineer which can be analyzed in a different thought. In the eyes of the owners, slaves are thought of as nothing but property, with no intellect to read or write but only to live and to work. The whites depict themselves to be the “masters” of the universe, they hold the intelligence because they hold capitalistic and authoritative beliefs. However a slave was able to analyze the task at hand and complete the job of an engineer. There were many scenes throughout the course of the film that bring out the aspects of how powerful and brutal slavery was on the blacks. One particular scene about mid-way through the movie where Solomon (Platt) was ordered to whip the fellow woman slave, Patsey for leaving the plantation to get soap. Platt refuses but eventually his master forces him to strike her. With each lash shows the power of the effects of slavery, the look in Patsy’s face as she is struck repeatedly and repeatedly. With each hit gaining more pain, it was unbearable and unappealing to watch how these slave owners can treat another man with such utter …show more content…
The effects of slavery forever changed not only these lives but also how we view humanity now. During the movie and also throughout history, slaves were sold at auction to be become a master 's property and nothing was said. Many slaves had to give up their families, forced to be split between different owners. This happened in the beginning of the film when Solomon and the other slaves were being auctioned. Master Ford was purchasing a black woman named Patsy, and felt some sympathy when she said she did not want to break her family apart and asked to purchase her daughter. The slave auctioneer refused saying she’ll be worth more money in the long run for himself. Master Ford
Though slightly frivolous to mention merely because of its obviousness but still notably, all the slaves came from the Southern states including and not limited to Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, and Arkansas. Economically, the United States’ main cash crops—tobacco, rice, sugarcane, and cotton—were cultivated by the slaves who the rich Southerners heavily depended upon. From this perspective establishes a degree of understanding about the unwillingness to abolish slavery and contributes to the reality of the clear division between the agriculturally based South and industrially based North. Having watched the film, I wished the Northern people were more aware of the abuses and dehumanization of the slaves though the saddening reality is that the truth of the slaves’ conditions couldn’t be revealed till much later on because the fear of retaliation and prosecution of the slave owners and white people was very much present. That the slaves’ mistreatment would be considered repulsive and repugnant to the Quakers and abolitionists is made evident the narratives of the slaves read by the different former slaves who elucidated the countless
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:
In fact, in the former part of this movie, showing Solomon as a normal free man accidentally become to a slave in one night, his heart was from the surprise at the beginning to resist, and the last desperate mentality. Using little person to reflect during nineteenth century American racism and slavery was very popular. The director did not use a common black slave as the main perspective instead of using a black free man, who was very less during that time, to tell this sadness experience, which makes the movie can more deeply express the pitiful and difficulty of the black man during that period were
Physical brutality wasn’t the only method white slave owners used to abuse slaves. Douglass shows how white slave owners sustain slavery by keeping the African Americans ignorant. Slaves were not allowed to know how to read or write because the slave owners did not want them to read about the rebellions that were taking place around the world. Becoming literate would have opened the slaves up to the world and understand self-preservation, justice and historical events. They did not want the slaves seeking hope and forming an escape plan to gain their freedom. Douglass stated that becoming literate “had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out (Puchner, Martin).” A second theme present in this narrative is how slavery not only damaged African Americans, but the white slave owners as well. It shows how slave owners thrived on the power of “owning” human beings. Douglass states how being a slave owner was harmful to the owner’s moral sense of health because it is unnatural for a human to own another human/ humans. He informs his audience of the horrendous behavior of a typical slave owner. He depicts his memories of how they slave owners and watchers used to whip, rape and vocally demean slaves. For example, Douglass gave the readers of the corruption of slavery was a slave owner named Sophia
Historical evidence is displayed and shown in a variety of ways through popular media, the most common way being a motion picture. For this extra credit essay, I chose to write about the movie 12 Years a Slave because I felt that it appropriately fit the time frame from the beginning of time through 1877. I have provided a short summary of the film, and then briefly described how and why I think that it has fit the time frame of this course.
12 Years a slave is an Autobiography of a born free man named Solomon Northup who was deceived by two conmen and got kidnapped and was sold like an animal and was compelled to like a slave life. There are so many events in the book, that touch the readers heart and makes us feel his pain through his words. The high points of this book are his life from past to present to his imaginary 360 degree turn in his life and his on-going life as a slave. This autobiography is all about his 12 years as a slave and this he had to go through as a slave. That’s the reason why I believe the thesis of his book is also his slave life, what he had to go through 12 years of being slave and how hard his life was. He was sold along with his other Nigger friends, who were born as a slave and was adopting that life in which they were raised but things were completely different for him, as he was born in the free man’s house who was blessed
It tells the story of Solomon, a freeman who is kidnapped and enslaved for 12 years. By familiarizing us with characters the movie helps lend a more emotional tone to the struggle of slaves and freeman. This helped me sympathize more with the plight of African Americans during the Antebellum period because it added a more personal feel to the horrors of slavery and drew me in more. Although I always knew that they were treated horrendously I could never truly grasp just how extreme their oppression was. It also illustrates that even freemen were always in danger of being enslaved and abused. 12 Years A Slave should remain a part of the United States History curriculum because it brings an even stronger emotional connection to the struggle of African Americans in the
“Even the actors who star in genre movies factor into how the genre is classified, analyzed, and received by audiences (3, 83).” In the film 12 Years of Slave, McQueen uses Solomon Northrop as the main character (“Star”) who changes over time to force the audience to see slavery anew. In the conditions Solomon is living as a slave makes him rebel, lying, and a dishonest person. The first time Solomon rebels is at Ford's house. In that scene we see the crucial way Solomon whips Tibeats. After that Solomon knows his punishment is going to be worse. As we see Solomon's punishment it made us reveal the real consequences of being a rebel slave can turn out to be. The words freedom fighter is the way of seeing Solomon rebel lioness. However, we begin to encounter the lies of Solomon when he is with his second master Epps. Solomon lies "to live not to survive," like he mention in the beginning of the film. He starts by lying to save himself from getting killed. Throughout the film we see how honest Solomon is but nothing stops him by being dishonest. Once Solomon starts protesting his freedom. We see how badly that turns out to be. "Free Man," is the words Solomon starts using yet he stops once he sees what it has cost him. McQueen emphasis the dangerous of those two words "free man," as a crucial punishment, since we see Solomon's back full
In this film we see how indentured slaves and enslaves from Africa and Europe were nonetheless exploited. It was then that the Dutch wanted to make more money by free labor and in that were described as the first 11 enslaved men to arrive in New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company. These men are described in this film to be the backbone of New Amsterdam alongside the indentured men because they created the infrastructure. As the number of slaves grew, their chance at freedom was also still on the table when they received half freedom. Although it wasn't complete freedom it was a gateway towards that. But soon after Blacks received their freedom, the film described it to be worse than being a slave. Some examples they mention were John Punch, and Frances Driggus. After this point, to be a Black slave their situation was worse because slavery was now legal in New York and Maryland. The film expressed that now from around 1700's to 1800’s slavery was now a race-based institution. More and more slaves bought through cargo because more slaves equaled more capital. To this point, slaves were auctioned as property and several of those taken from their homeland by cargo were thrown off a ship to the ocean. The Government was not mad at the fact that this was wrong against humanity, but over the smell of the dead that washed up
Before the Civil War, slavery was at its peak in the Southern states such as Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. During this period life as a slave owner was luxurious, but life as a slave was excruciating. Numerous slaves during this time period were treated inhumanly in ways that normal people couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Slaves before the Civil War were whipped, raped, burned, and even branded. Many slaves in the Southern states during this era saw the torment to much and contemplated suicide such as Fountain Hughes who stated, “If I thought, had any idea, that I’d ever be a slave again, I’d take a gun an’ jus’ end it all right away because your nothing but a dog.” Just like the brutality seen in the South before the Civil War slaves
To start off this essay, we must first address the whole reason that slaves were slaves. Their masters. In most cases throughout history when slavery is mentioned historians may picture a plantation owned by a white man who runs it very strictly and roughly. Which isn’t wrong, but was rather not always the case. Yes, there were masters who treated their slaves and merely dirt, or animals required to earn them (Plantation owners) a good source of income. In the book owners who treated their slaves as such were Burch, Freeman, Tibeats and Epps. “In this manner he gave me twenty or thirty lashes, incessantly giving utterance to the word “tanning”…” (Northup, pg. 183) that quote was merely a small insight to the cruelty that Solomon
12 Years a Slave is the most powerful and moving American slavery movie of all time. Although it’s a big statement, it is an accurate one. The film leaves you feeling as though you have just experienced slavery. The historical and biographical film tells the story of Solomon Northup who was kidnapped, sold into slavery and put to work for 12 years before his release. This film is gory and horrific but really tells the story of the past. This film will exceed any expectations.
The characters in “12 years a slave” contain the dynamics of race, class, and gender identities in the United States at the time. The protagonist, Solomon Northup is unique amongst the slaves he encounters while in bondage. Not only is Northup a free African American, he is of moderately affluent status. The son of a freed slave, Solomon is the product of the diaspora of free blacks seeking to escape the horrors of slavery and the severe racism of the south through resettling in free northern states and Canada. Solomon was educated, exceptionally well spoken, and skillfully intelligent, quite unlike most slaves he comes into contact with, many of whom are forced by their masters to remain illiterate. This difference in education can be partially
The portrayal of difficult topics such as slavery can either cause a movie public backlash or lasting critical praise. This reigns true for 12 Years a Slave, a 2013 Academy Award winning movie directed by Steve McQueen depicting the real life events of Solomon Northup, a man who was born free but is kidnapped and sold into slavery. This film was well received for its unforgiving depiction of slavery and for its message of anti-racism and racial struggle. Despite these accolades, many people believe that the film inadvertently hinders race progress as it is more visible than films about racism today, thus allowing people to believe that race issues are no longer prevalent in America. This phenomenon has been studied and captured by many academics, including Miriam Thaggert in her scholarly review “12 Years a Slave: Jasper’s Look.”
The film 12 Years a Slave and the slave narrative The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass are two stories about two different slave men. In both Solomon Northup’s story and Frederick Douglass’ story, music is also shown as a way of dehumanizing the characters through forced performance and the robbing of one’s passion, as well as humanizing them by the expression of emotion. Music is shown as a theme of struggle and growth, a form of expression, conveying different types of emotions and a way that connects the slaves.