The Reality Of Slavery In The Movie: 12 Years A Slave

1686 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial stereotypes in movies and TV shows

In the film 12 Years a Slave, director Steve McQueen does a wonderful job of communicating to his audience the reality of slavery by portraying a true story in the form of movie scenes. Through the main actor Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance, who plays the character Solomon Northup, we witness a complete change in a man’s life as Solomon becomes a slave, when he was once originally a free man (12 Years a Slave). Solomon was deceived by two white men name Hamilton (Taran Killam) and Brown (Scoot McNairy), who betrayed him by convincing Solomon to come to Washington for a temporary sufficient paying job as a violinist(12 Years a Slave). However, instead of landing the job, Solomon was forced into slavery (12 Years a Slave). This particular film reveals Solomon’s experiences struggling to live peacefully as a slave due to constant humiliation, which is a hardship common for nearly all the slaves he encountered. Furthermore, the movie also emphasizes the experiences and journey of another main actor name Lupita Nyong’o, who plays the role of Patsey. In the movie, Patsey was born into slavery and faces hardships as a female slave, mainly dealing with oppression from her male owner Edwin Epps (Micheal Fassbender) (12 Years a Slave). Personally, I found this movie extremely heartbreaking because it was sad watching white owners treat their black slaves horribly due to the ideals of racism. Racism is portrayed throughout the entire film in order for McQueen to successfully share this true story and allow his audience to understand how inhumane slavery really was through Solomon and Patsey’s experiences. When trying to understand these particular characters’ experiences, it is very important to consider their worldviews, which promote “[th... ... middle of paper ... ...ept wondering what Patsey would’ve done next as Solomon strode away (12 Years a Slave), but McQueen decided to end the focus on Patsey while all my questions still revolved around this innocent slave, who will never be free. Although unsettling, this decision to leave the ends loose and open-ended keeps the conversation of slavery and its cruelty open for audience members to reflect on and think about even after the movie has ended. Perhaps the decision to lead one man to his family and leave another girl in the hands of her slave owners reinforces the idea that the practice of slavery and the experiences of each individual slave are personalized and their worldviews shaped by their unique upbringing. McQueen challenges us to question an institution and practice that people assume they understand already through the two characters’ Solomon and Patsey’s experiences.

Show More
Related

  • Comparing S King Lear And Edgar Allen Poe's Eldorado

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both texts present varying ideas of journeys, as characters in both texts come to realisations about their true natures, reflect on their past choices and gain a deeper understanding into personal relationships. In both texts characters come to realisations in their journeys that create a deep understanding of many aspects of 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

  • Film Analysis Of The Film '12 Years A Slave'

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    The film 12 Years a Slave takes us into a twelve-year window of Solomon Northup’s life. Its origin comes from Solomon Northup’s book, with the same title, that recounts one fragment of America’s most embarrassing exploits. The film was directed by Steve McQueen and was released in the year 2013. The director chose 12 Years a Slave to work with after much searching for non-fictional story that featured a man who was ripped from his family and forced into slavery. Solomon’s story was just that. Many critics have been praised the film and particularly single out Chiwetel Ekiofor’s performance as the best acting of the year (Solomon Northup).

    Read More

  • Comparing Poor Man's Pudding, Bartleby, Minister's Black Veil, or Masque of the Red Death

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ected by the differences (and perhaps similarities) of their lives and those less fortunate. They stand at the crossroad that would define their character and their future course of action. Some choose ambivalence, some choose to see and turn away, others may even convince themselves that they are actually better than they used to be. But without acting on any internal change these people have failed to convince the reader that they have been redeemed. Their inability or unwillingness to extend themselves to the cause of brotherhood and human kindness is their testament. The reader has no pity for these men, but unlike them the reader can internalize the lessons of their experiences and effect change in their own lives. Their failure to act is their greatest folly, but the reader can rise above these characters, recognizing their failure and take a different path.

    Read More

  • Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Solomon Northup's Relationship with His Slave Master

    1081 Words  | 3 Pages

    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:

    Read More

  • Analysis Of 12 Years A Slave And Secrets And Lies

    953 Words  | 2 Pages

    For this paper I have watched the movies 12 Years a Slave and Secrets and Lies. The first film I mentioned is about slavery in the 19th century in America starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northup Solomon. It’s actually based on the novel of Northup Solomon, a citizen of the middle class. He has written this novel after years of slavery. He was a black man who was kidnapped and afterwards got sold as a slave. Northup has already got a wife and two children when he gets kidnapped. Before he gets into slavery, he has been working as a violinist and lives in New York with his small family. One day, two men want him to travel with them to Washington and promise him to offer him a job as a musician when they return. He accepts their request and the three men go to Washington. What Northup did not know was that these two men weren’t to offer him a job in return but were to kidnap him. At dinner in Washington, they drug him and then lock him up in a cellar where he also gets chained. A white man first tortures him and calls him Platt, a slave that ran away from Georgia. He asks him about his name and starts beating him because he replies that he’s called Northup and not Platt and that he’s a actually a free man. This white man then takes him to New Orleans by ship where they sell him to William Ford as a slave. He starts working for him but one day an over-seer called John Tibeats attacks him and Northup fights back. After this incident, his owner Ford has to sell him to Edwin Epps because if not, Tibeats will kill him. After working for several years at Epps’ plantation, one day the sheriff comes over to see Northup. He starts asking him questions about his earlier life and as soon as he notices that the given answers are the same with wh...

    Read More

  • Slavery in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” (Sir Richard Steele) Reading expands the mind’s capacity for knowledge. It gives us a different outlook on the world. Reading lets us live in a completely different version of life, unlike our own. To Kill a Mockingbird is a very flavorful book. It gives us insight on the old times, back when racism was still a big problem. It tells us how they lived their lives during the Great Depression. It's not only a life story, but it is a history lesson. This story is a fine addition to our reading curve. If people read, it can give people a brief description of history, descriptive language that entices listeners and readers and can teach people lessons for everyday life.

    Read More

  • Slave Women In Solomon Northup's 12 Years A Slave

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Slavery : Slavery And Slavery

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plantation owners in the south hunted for, captured, and enslaved African Americans to do a wide variety of work at the plantations. Even though these slaves would get regularly whipped for arbitrary reasons, the owners and masters believed that it was in the best interest of the slaves to be in slavery. A slave masters wife started teaching a slave by the name of Fredrick Douglass how to read because she believed he would not have gotten the chance to learn if he was not in slavery. Slave masters also knew the slaves had a better live because they had food to eat. They claimed that if the slaves had not been captured or born of a slave family, they would not have had the adequate amount of food to survive. Douglass refutes that humanitarian views towards slavery are wrong by giving his insight on how he was dehumanized by slavery in the following ways: his ability to learn basic life skills, how to care and have a voice for himself and lastly, the gift of happiness.

    Read More

  • Great Divorce

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whether a warning to or a reflection on society, the book stimulates thought and forces the reader to look inward at his or her own...

    Read More

  • Relationships in "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses"

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The story employs a dramatic point of view that emphasizes the fragility of human relationships. It shows understanding and agreemen...

    Read More

  • Slavery - Life On The Plantations

    1552 Words  | 4 Pages

    Slave Life The warm climate, boundless fields of fertile soil, long growing seasons, and numerous waterways provided favorable conditions for farming plantations in the South (Foster). The richness of the South depended on the productivity of the plantations (Katz 3-5). With the invention of the cotton gin, expansion of the country occurred. This called for the spread of slavery (Foster). Slaves, owned by one in four families, were controlled from birth to death by their white owners. Black men, women, and children toiled in the fields and houses under horrible conditions (Katz 3-5). The slave system attempted to destroy black family structure and take away human dignity (Starobin 101). Slaves led a hard life on the Southern plantations. Most slaves were brought from Africa, either kidnapped or sold by their tribes to slave catchers for violating a tribal command. Some were even traded for tobacco, sugar, and other useful products (Cowan and Maguire 5:18). Those not killed or lucky enough to escape the slave-catching raids were chained together (Foster). The slaves had no understanding of what was happening to them. They were from different tribes and of different speaking languages. Most captured blacks had never seen the white skinned foreigners who came on long, strange boats to journey them across the ocean. They would never see their families or native lands again. These unfortunate people were shackled and crammed tightly into the holds of ships for weeks. Some refused to eat and others committed suicide by jumping overboard (Foster). When the ships reached American ports, slaves were unloaded into pens to be sold at auctions to the highest bidder. One high-priced slave compared auction prices with another, saying, "You wouldn’t fetch ‘bout fifty dollas, but I’m wuth a thousand" (qtd. in Foster). At the auctions, potential buyers would examine the captives’ muscles and teeth. Men’s and women’s bodies were exposed to look for lash marks. No marks on a body meant that he or she was an obedient person. The slaves were required to dance or jump around to prove their limberness. Young, fair-skinned muttaloes, barely clothed and ready to be sold to brothel owners, were kept in private rooms (Foster). It was profitable to teach the slaves skills so that during the crop off-season they could be hired out to work. Although they were not being paid, some were doing more skilled work than poor whites were.

    Read More

  • Slavery In The Django Unchained

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Narrative Analysis Of Trailer In 12 Years A Slave

    2297 Words  | 5 Pages

    “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

    Read More

More about The Reality Of Slavery In The Movie: 12 Years A Slave

Open Document