12 Years Of A Slave Book Analysis

12 Years a Slave is a movie directed by Steve McQueen, based off the autobiography of Solomon Northup. The book was written in the year of 1853. The movie shows the turn of Solomon’s life of how he was a freed slave man in New York city and was tricked into becoming a slave. A few of the major characters are: Solomon himself, James. H. Burch which was a brutal slave dealer who was the first to keep Solomon, Eliza Berry was also captive in James Burch’s slave pen and sold with Solomon, Merrill Brown is one of the two men that con and kidnapped him and Abram Hamilton was the other, Armsby was a poor white man that worked on the plantation that Solomon thought he could trust him to send a letter off for him but instead he betrayed him, Mr. Bass was also a white man that was working to build a house on Mr. Epps plantation. The slave seller was James H. Burch and a few of Solomon’s masters were: William Ford, John Tibeats, and Edwin Epps. William Ford bought Solomon and Eliza together and was described as a fair christian man but turned him over to Tibeats to repay his debt and Mr. Epps was the last man to hold Solomon into slavery. He was eventually rescued out of slavery and taken home to his family where he later filed

Solomon presented all the abuse that he dealt with and the abuse that he had to inflict on others. Overall, it shows all people how slavery can degrade a person and take over a person emotionally and physically. Looking back we can also see how slavery will also degrade the master. It degrades the masters by them supposingly being christians but treating people of color as if they were dogs, which made them hypocrites. I think this is also Solomon’s story to others, to tell us to be thankful for family and freedom because although he was a free man he was still taken into slavery against his